Java was created by James Gosling and his team at Sun Microsystems in 1991. It was originally designed for television but later shifted focus to use on the Internet when released in 1996. Java applications are compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java Virtual Machine, making code portable across platforms. Key features of Java include its simplicity, object-oriented design, security, and ability to write code once and run it anywhere. It differs from C/C++ in its removal of pointers and inclusion of automatic memory management through garbage collection.