Consumer Technology World Brief

There are 17 competing teams in the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Robotics Challenge. The agency, which funded basic science research for now commonplace technologies like the Internet and global positioning satellites, hopes the competition will spur the development of robots that can work in places too dangerous for humans. The challenge was launched in 2011 in response to the meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant after it was hit by a massive earthquake-spawned tsunami. Nearly 160,000 people were forced to flee the area. During the two-day trials at a south Florida professional race car track, the platoon of robots faced obstacles designed to mimic the challenges following a disaster. Robots had to cut through reinforced concrete wall, navigate debris-strewn terrain and locate and turn off leaking valves. Officials from DARPA also disrupted the link between robots and their operators, further simulating a disaster. The eight teams with the highest scores will be awarded USD 1 million in funding to prepare for the final round in late 2014, where the winning team will be awarded USD 2 million.

North America Review

Consumer sentiment hit a five-month high heading into the end of the year and spending notched its strongest month since the summer, the latest signs of sustained vigor in the economy that are fostering hopes of a strong 2014. Consumer spending rose in November at the fastest pace since June and an upbeat sentiment reading for December suggests consumers will keep shopping despite tepid income growth. The U.S. economy grew at a 4.1 percent clip in the July-September period, the fastest pace in nearly two years, after expanding at a 2.5 percent rate in the second quarter. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the international lender would raise its growth forecast for the world’s largest economy next year. The IMF forecasted in October 2013 that the U.S. economy would expand 2.6 percent in 2014.

The U.S. government took a step toward opening the skies to aerial drones, authorizing six sites where unmanned aircraft can be tested for a variety of uses. The Federal Aviation Administration already had approved limited use of drones in the United States for law enforcement, surveillance, atmospheric research and other applications. Monday’s decision will give companies, universities and other organizations to test much broader uses, such as crop spraying, catching exotic-animal poachers or delivering packages, as Amazon.com Inc. recently suggested. Global spending on unmanned aircraft is expected to nearly double to USD 11.6 billion a year by 2023, according to aviation and aerospace industry research firm Teal Group. The first test site is expected to be open in six months and the sites will operate at least until February 2017. But some locations already have other related tests in progress, and research money available. One of several tests in North Dakota, for example, looks at how to train pilots to fly unmanned vehicles for the U.S. Air Force, said Al Palmer, director of the Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research at the University of North Dakota

Asia Review

Asia’s manufacturing sector ended 2013 on a strong note, with expansion hitting multi-year highs in export-driven Japan and Taiwan, but signs of moderation in China raise concerns about the outlook for the new year. Both official and private measures of manufacturing activity in China fell in December, reinforcing views that the world’s second-largest economy lost some steam in the final quarter of 2013. The HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for China slipped to a three-month low of 50.5 in December, consistent with a dip in the government’s PMI to a four-month low of 51.0. Still, both held above the 50 point level that separates expansion from contraction. Taiwanese manufacturers last month posted the sharpest expansion of output since April 2011, and new export orders rose. But in South Korea, new export orders dipped even as overall activity picked up to a seven-month high. In China, both the official and private PMIs showed export orders contracted in December.

Toshifumi Suzuki, the 81-year-old Japanese executive who built 7-Eleven into the world’s biggest convenience store chain has a new mission: turning more than 50,000 bricks and mortar stores in Japan into portals to a new online retail empire. To do it, Toshifumi Suzuki, the chief executive of department store to mail order retailer Seven & I Holdings Co, is once again seeking inspiration in the United States. It’s over 40 years since he kick started a revolution in Japanese retail by bringing 7-Eleven stores across the Pacific, eventually buying the U.S. owners after they sought bankruptcy protection. In Suzuki’s future vision, goods ordered online from Seven & I’s department stores and supermarkets, as well as outside partners, will be delivered to and picked up from the thousands of 7-Eleven stores spread across Japan at customers’ convenience. Most are open 24 hours a day. He dispatched about 50 heads of the group’s companies – his top lieutenants – on a mission to the U.S. He instructed them to visit retailers like Macy’s Inc, shopping malls and Internet companies, examples of what he called “omnichannel” integration that are beginning to yield results – with orders to figure out how to apply it in Japan. With no plans to step down any time soon, Suzuki has a reputation for a willingness to innovate and make big plays. In 1991, his company acquired a majority stake in its U.S. mentor and original 7-Eleven Inc. owner Southland Corp.

Europe Review

Euro zone manufacturing grew at the fastest rate since mid-2011 in December on brisk business in Germany and Italy, setting the stage for a solid start to the year after a tumultuous 2013, and a near two-year stretch of job cuts across euro zone factories almost came to an end last month. Looking at individual countries in the region, the mood was largely positive, with the exception of France. Manufacturing activity in the euro zone’s No.2 economy hit a six-month nadir last month. The weakness of euro zone inflation, at just 0.9 percent in November, has caused concern among policymakers at the European Central Bank. The latest PMIs suggest that disinflationary forces from manufacturing, at least, may have peaked. However, even with struggling Italy and Spain showing signs of a much brighter year ahead, the region’s recovery may be hobbled by a sickly French manufacturing base.

Italy delayed the start of its planned Internet tax until July 2014, approved billions of euros in business and welfare measures and extended a ban on media cross-ownership in a final package of year-end legislation approved. The delay in launching the Internet tax, sometimes dubbed the “Google tax”, should ensure it can be more closely coordinated with other European countries. The tax, designed to ensure that companies that advertise and sell online in Italy do so only through companies with a tax presence in the country, has been criticized by the European Commission, which expressed doubts on its legality before it was approved in parliament. The delay was contained in the so-called “Milleproroghe” (“thousand extensions”), a catch-all decree used by Italian governments to pack in miscellaneous pieces of legislation that must be approved before the start of the New Year. The package announced after Friday’s cabinet meeting included measures to allow Italy to use 6.2 billion euros in European Union funds, which have already been approved, to help small businesses, fight youth unemployment and help local economies by funding the maintenance of historic sites.