What are the 300 products have import duty abolished in 2011 National Budget

The 2011 National Budget speech by Najib on 15 October 2010 evening proposed that the import duty of approximately 300 goods preferred by tourists and locals be abolished with immediate effect.

Those items are:

• Handbags, wallets, suitcases, briefcases, apparel, suits, children's apparel, shirts, undergarments, lingerie, nightwear, footwear, shoes and hats (duty between 5%-20%)
• Jewellery, costume jewellery and ornaments (duty between 5%-20%)
• Golf balls, toys such as dolls and small scale recreational models (duty between 5%-20%)
• Talcum powder, face powder, shampoo, hair colourants and perfume (duty between 10%-20%)
• Bedspreads, blankets, bed sheets, curtains, table cloth and mosquito nettings (duty between 10%-20%)

The detail listis said to be available in a so-called Appendix A, which I still can't find downloadabale in any government websites now.

Click here to download the speech of 2011 National Budget

Click here to download the 16 appendixes of 2011 National Budget (but without the Appendix A)

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.