--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -71,10 +71,10 @@
 
  ** Other new functions added in 3.6.0:
 
-    is_dq_string      python 
-    is_sq_string      waitbar
-    nthargout         zscore
-    
+    is_dq_string      python      zscore
+    is_sq_string      usejava 
+    nthargout         waitbar
+                      
  ** Deprecated functions.
 
     The following functions were deprecated in Octave 3.2 and have been

new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/miscellaneous/usejava.m
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+## Copyright (C) 2011 Rik Wehbring
+##
+## This file is part of Octave.
+##
+## Octave is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+## under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+## the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at
+## your option) any later version.
+##
+## Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
+## WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
+## General Public License for more details.
+##
+## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+## along with Octave; see the file COPYING.  If not, see
+## <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {} usejava (@var{feature})
+## Return true if the specific Sun Java element @var{feature} is available.
+##
+## Possible features are:
+##
+## @table @asis
+## @item "awt"
+## Abstract Window Toolkit for GUIs.
+##
+## @item "desktop"
+## Interactive desktop is running.
+##
+## @item "jvm"
+## Java Virtual Machine.
+##
+## @item "swing"
+## Swing components for lightweight GUIs.
+## @end table
+##
+## This function is provided for compatability with @sc{matlab} scripts which
+## may alter their behavior based on the availability of Java.  Octave does
+## not implement an interface to Java and this function always returns
+## @code{false}.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function retval = usejava (feature)
+
+  if (nargin != 1 || ! ischar (feature))
+    print_usage ();
+  endif
+
+  if (! any (strcmp (feature, {"awt", "desktop", "jvm", "swing"})))
+    error ("usejava: unrecognized feature '%s'", feature);
+  endif
+
+  retval = false;
+
+endfunction
+
+
+%!assert (usejava ("awt"), false)
+
+%% Test input validation
+%!error usejava ()
+%!error usejava (1, 2)
+%!error usejava (1)
+%!error <unrecognized feature> usejava ("abc")
+