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Schwarzenegger praises tech, chides wife in Oracle cameo
2009-10-15
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A gala Oracle conference ended Wednesday with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger praising technology and joking about online video of his wife driving while chatting on a mobile phone. "Can you believe my wife gets caught three times?" Schwarzenegger quipped, referring to TMZ.com video and pictures posted online Wednesday showing his wife Maria Shriver holding a mobile telephone to her ear while driving. "This is no-win," he continued, referring to a vow he made to take action regarding his wife evidently ignoring state law that requires motorists to use hands-free headsets for mobile telephones. "If I don't create action the voters get upset and if I do create action with her then I get no action." Shriver issued an apology and vowed to atone by donating her favorite old mobile telephone to a charity for victims of domestic violence. "I just hope that some day in the future, we could have a hands-free mobile phone," Schwarzenegger said facetiously after joining Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison during a closing speech at Oracle Open World. An estimated 35,000 people from more than 100 countries attended the annual gathering of Oracle fans and customers in San Francisco. "I love all the techs; high tech, biotech, clean tech," the governor said. "Around the globe the best and brightest minds are working to overcome the challenges of the 21st century. I think technology will save us all." Schwarzenegger credited science with helping him become a champion bodybuilder after immigrating to the United States as a young man and with making him appear heroic and "studly" as a movie action hero. "How could I have done 'Terminator' and 'Conan the Barbarian' without all that technology?" he asked. Schwarzenegger predicted that technology will play pivotal roles in dealing with climate change, energy needs, economic growth, and health woes. "Technology's impact is flesh and blood," Schwarzenegger said. "I've seen the infinite limits of technology. Even though we're going through tough times, I've never been more confident about the future." Schwarzenegger touted California as a cradle of innovation and congratulated Oracle on its 7.4-billion-dollar deal to buy Sun Microsystems. Ellison wrapped up the gala by describing his company's Fusion applications being tailored for the trend toward offering software as an online service, and he repeated a 10-million-dollar challenge he made Sunday at the start of the conference. While kicking off Open World, Ellison vowed to merge his company's business software prowess with Sun's hardware innovations in a synergy powerful enough to take on US technology giant IBM. Ellison challenged any company to run database applications on a Sun-Oracle system and promised to pay 10 million dollars if the Sun gear doesn't perform at least twice as fast as other equipment. "IBM, you are more than welcome to enter," Ellison said in a swipe at his competitor. Business software giant Oracle's bid for Sun is under investigation under EU merger regulation. The deal for Sun, a one-time Silicon Valley star and developer of the popular Java programming language, was approved by Sun shareholders in July and the US Department of Justice in August, but is now on hold. An EU decision is due by 19 January, 2010. Oracle develops, manufactures and distributes company software, and is the market leader in proprietary databases -- big beasts for large-scale management of businesses' commercial information. Sun, meanwhile, has built up the leading open source databases -- which are now able to support similarly large-scale commercial databases running to hundreds of computing gigabytes in size.
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