What are best practices for ensuring that PHP-generated date and time information remains up-to-date when using Java applets to update images on a webpage?

When using Java applets to update images on a webpage, it is important to ensure that the PHP-generated date and time information remains up-to-date. One way to achieve this is by passing the current timestamp from PHP to the Java applet when requesting the image update. This way, the Java applet can use the current timestamp to fetch the latest image data from the server.

<?php
$current_timestamp = time();
echo "<applet code='ImageUpdater.class' width='300' height='300'>";
echo "<param name='timestamp' value='$current_timestamp'>";
echo "</applet>";
?>