27 winners in Oracle Magazine Editors Choice Awards 2010

It has come to the 9th year for the editors of Oracle Magazine to present the Editors’ Choice Awards to people who exemplify leadership, vision, and dedication in working with and managing Oracle technology.

And the winners for year 2010 are:

• Alexandre Vasconcellos from Grupo Pão de Açúcar, Brazil - CIO of the Year, Latin America
• PeiHui Wang from China Resources (Holdings) Co., Ltd., Hong Kong - CIO of the Year, Asia Pacific
• Yasutomo Fukui from Panasonic, Japan - CIO of the Year, Japan
• Rob James from Novartis, Switzerland - CIO of the Year, Europe, Middle East, and Africa
• Fjeldheim from Qualcomm, California - CIO of the Year, North America
• Ipolani Tano from VeriFone, Hawaii - CTO of the Year
• Vinod Haval from Bank of America, North Carolina - DBA of the Year
• Francisco Munoz Alvarez from Database Integrated Solutions, New Zealand - Oracle ACE Director of the Year
• Roxanne Shelton from AT&T, Texas - Oracle Applications Implementer of the Year
• Rodrigo Benzaquen from MercadoLibre, Argentina - Virtualization Architect of the Year
• Jim Duffy from BNP Paribas, France - Data Warehouse Architect of the Year
• Theresa Enebo and Aaron Seabaugh from TeleTech Holdings, Colorado - Cloud Architects of the Year
• Keiichiro Shimizu from SoftBank Mobile, Japan - IT Manager of the Year
• Rajeev Agrawal, Brian Deegan, Kathy Josephson, and Ajay Yelne from General Dynamics Information Technology, Virginia - Enterprise Performance Management / Business Intelligence Architects of the Year
• Yekesa Kosuru from Nokia, Massachusetts - MySQL Developer of the Year
• Adam Bien from adam-bien.com, Germany - Java Developer of the Year
• Gary Clark, Gregory Hansen, Ali Pasham, Sean Shilton, and Alex Whitehurst from Liberty AV Solutions, Colorado - Oracle Database Developers of the Year
• John O’Donnell from Deutsche Bank, New York - Security Architect of the Year
• Yamil Ahuatzin from Grupo Actinver, Mexico - Oracle Fusion Middleware Architect of the Year

Google conducts R&D on self-driving automated cars

Recently, there are some news about Google test driving their new innovative toy - self-driving automated cars that can start, stop, steer and run without any human intervention.

This project involved 7 cars (6 Toyota Priuses and 1 Audi TT) that have mostly been driven without any human assistance for at least 1000 miles (or 1609 kilometers) on major California roads. In fact, they've already gone through more than 140,000 miles (or 225,260 kilometers) with only occasional human control.

The cars know speed limits, traffic patterns and road maps. This is made possible by a rotating sensor on the roof to create an environment around the car, a video-camera behind the windshield for pedestrians and traffic lights, radar on the front and back bumper, GPS and motion sensors, controlled by computer with artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.

Google claimed that these automated self-driving cars can react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated. As a result, this can reduce accident on the road.

The car can even be programmed for different driving personalities — from "cautious" to "aggressive" mode.

This project is the brainchild of Sebastian Thrun, 43, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a Google engineer and the co-inventor of the Street View mapping service.

Though this invention is still far from production yet, we can probably foresee the automated car KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) that we watched in the TV show Knight Rider to come into reality in the near future.

Guidelines for Gated Community and Guarded Neighbourhood by JPBD

The Department of Town and Country Planning Peninsular Malaysia (Jabatan Perancangan Bandar dan Desa Semenanjung Malaysia, JPBD) has finally published the Guidelines for Gated Community (GC) and Guarded Neighbourhood (GN) in their website.

By definition, "Gated Community" refers to a gated and guarded residential community, either in highrise or landed properties. The properties in a Gated Community need to have strata title (including landed strata). This kind of community is only allowed in limited location in urban area.

Meanwhile, "Guarded Neighbourhood" refers to residential community with individual land title properties which has security service either with or without security house. It can be of "guarded only" (without fence) and "guarded and gated" (with fence).

For Gated Community:

• Minimum area under the scheme is 1 hectar and maximum is 10 hectar (200-500 house units)
• The roads and shared amenities inside the GC belong to the community, and managed by Management Corporation elected by the residents
• Building of wall to separate the community from its neighbourhood is not allowed
• Social Impact Analysis needs to be carried out before the establishment of GC be considered
• Need to have 2 entrances/exits (one for main usage, another for emergency)
• Perimeter fencing of height not more than 9 feets and at least 50% visible from outside is allowed
• Boom gate is not allowed
• Guard house of 1.8m x 2.4m
• The houses cannot be more than 4 levels (18.5 meters) from basement
• Visitors' parking must be allocated

For Guarded Neighbourhood:

• Only allowed in urban area
• Establishment of GN needs to be proposed by Residents Association and supported by majority of the residents
• Guard house of 1.8m x 2.4m or smaller
• Manual boom gate with 24 hours security control can be considered
• Guards need to registered with Home Ministry

Click here to download the Guidelines for Gated Community and Guarded Neighbourhood by JPBD.