See:

Java Embedded: Next New Thing

Here's a quote:

 Through the past few years the 
 industry as we know it has seen 
 a big boom with the mobile and 
 cloud revolution. Today, there 
 has been an enormous amount of 
 buzz around machine to machine 
 (M2M) or the "Internet of Things," 
 since we are moving into a state 
 where everything is going to have 
 to be interconnected and will 
 have to properly communicate 
 together... Today, Java Embedded 
 provides that platform.