About 8 years ago, German programmer Martin Odersky developed a new language that would be able to compete against Java. The Scala language really took off when Twitter started using it to prevent their user base from crashing the network. Odersky’s Typesafe has raised $3 million in funding led by Greylock Partners. VMWare founder Diane Greene, and Facebook VP Chamath Palihapitiya also participated in this round. “We think the time’s right to assure enterprises that this is something stable and long-term,” stated Odersky.

James Gosling is known for founding Java while working at Sun Microsystems. After Oracle bought out Sun, Gosling decided not to quit. It turns out that Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has hired Gosling for an undecided position.

James Gosling invented the Java Programming Language and also implemented the original compiler and virtual machine. Gosling worked at Sun Microsystems since 1984. Oracle bought out Sun in April 2009.

“Yes, indeed, the rumors are true: I resigned from Oracle a week ago (April 2nd). I apologize to everyone in St Petersburg who came to TechDays on Thursday expecting to hear from me. I really hated not being there. As to why I left, it’s difficult to answer: Just about anything I could say that would be accurate and honest would do more harm than good. The hardest part is no longer being with all the great people I’ve had the privilege to work with over the years. I don’t know what I’m going to do next, other than take some time off before I start job hunting,” said Gosling in a blog post. [Nighthacks.com via eWeek]