A few weeks ago, I was fortunate to accompany a group of twenty-four exchange students from a local university. Some of them came from countries as far as Singapore. While up in the North, the Aurora Borealis might be a common sight, for tourists, it is still pretty much a calculated risk that it might be a fruitless journey. The night skies were overcast on the first night that they arrived, and it was bitterly cold for folks used to tropical weather, but they persisted. On their second night, there was a minor emergency that delayed a few of them from heading out to the remote site for viewing the Northern Lights, but again, they were determined. Within minutes of their arrival at the viewing site, there was a sudden break in the cloudy skies that coincided with a display of greens and purples that illuminated in the heavens. What a treat!

As we near the end of 2022, I'd like to reflect on the year's challenges and milestones.

It's been too long since I last posted anything on my blog. Thanks to Tim Hall, I am writing again, after a long pause, to celebrate Joel Kallman Day 2022. My contribution today is about my deep appreciation for the team behind the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) AI Services. Below is a quick scoop on how I have used these services to improve on my OCI-powered e-flashcard for learning new words in a different language. I will be doing a quick demonstration (session LRN3673) of this work at the upcoming Oracle CloudWorld 2022.

Is this a lasting treasure, or just a moment's pleasure?

~ Will You Love Me Tomorrow. The Shirelles.

As a technologist, we are constantly bombarded with buzzwords and terms like blockchain, IoT, AI, machine learning, quantum computing, and so much more! I love buzzwords, and wholeheartedly enjoy deciphering the future of technology and work. Hence, for the last few years, I have been a proud member of the committee that peruses and selects abstracts for the Kscope Emerging Technology (ET) track. For next year's Kscope22, I am honoured to be leading the team that will help select a series of sessions that are visionary, and hopefully, give us guidance on what to expect in the years ahead.

For a long time now, I have been eagerly awaiting for out-of-the-box RSA encryption support with pure PL/SQL. Not so much for to sharing secrets, but rather, the ability to sign messages and verify signatures. I might have missed the announcements, but it looks like my wait is over support with asymmetric key operations added in 21c, and (perhaps backported) in 19c as-of release 19.9.

During a recent Kscope21 session, "Predict Customer Churn Using Oracle Autonomous Database, Machine Learning, and APEX", I had shared that it has always been my personal desire to create web applications that are not only purposeful, but also have an element of "intelligence". With new features recently introduced in the Oracle Machine Learning product offering, it is now relatively easy to introduce ML as a component of your Oracle Application Express (APEX) applications. This is the first of several posts that I am writing as a follow up to the presentations I did at this year's (virtual) conference.