Japan economy may have bottomed out in late 2012 - government panel
(Reuters) - Japan may have emerged late last year from its shortest economic contraction in roughly 60 years, findings of a government panel showed, as optimism generated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's reflationary policies led to robust personal consumption.
Some members of a government panel, charged with gauging Japan's economic cycle, though the economy may have hit bottom in November last year judging from trends in the coincident indicators' index, a measurement of current economic conditions.
But the panel decided that more data and evidence would be needed before coming to a conclusion, though GDP data released earlier this month showed the economy expanded 2.6 percent on an annualized basis in the second quarter of this year, slowing from 3.8 percent growth in the first quarter. Read more...
Mark Zuckerberg wants millions more people online
SOCIAL NETWORK Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
wants to get even more people online and presumably yammering about
cats, getting drunk at parties and what they had for lunch.
Zuckerberg, who already has more than a billion Facebook members, has set up a partnership called Internet.org with some other firms and plans to use it to attract nonusers to the internet.
"For nine years, we've been on a mission to connect the world. We now connect more than [one] billion people, but to connect the next [five] billion we must solve a much bigger problem: the vast majority of people don't have access to the internet," he said in a Facebook post. Read more...
Zuckerberg, who already has more than a billion Facebook members, has set up a partnership called Internet.org with some other firms and plans to use it to attract nonusers to the internet.
"For nine years, we've been on a mission to connect the world. We now connect more than [one] billion people, but to connect the next [five] billion we must solve a much bigger problem: the vast majority of people don't have access to the internet," he said in a Facebook post. Read more...
Will Apple sip from a champagne-gold iPhone 5S?
The latest Apple iPhone rumor mill throws out another curve on the
design of its next-generation iPhone which will reportedly be revealed
on Sept. 10. Sources now say that Apple is planning to sell two new iPhones, including one that will be available in champagne gold. Read more...
Health Care Costs Climb Moderately, Survey Says
The average annual premium for a family rose 4 percent in 2013, to $16,351, according to the survey results released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Annual premiums for individual policies purchased through an employer rose 5 percent, to $5,884.
The 4 percent increase for a family is relatively tame, at least
compared with the roughly 10 percent annual increases experienced a
decade ago. But it is still a far bigger rise than 1.8 percent increase
in wages and the 1.1 percent rate of inflation in the last year, the
foundation said.Read more...
Incredible Technology: How to Live on Mars
If humanity hopes to establish a lasting presence on Mars, it will have to learn to live off the land.
Ambitious exploration efforts have always aimed for self-sufficiency,
but the need is especially acute when the new terrain being traversed is
another planet. Extensive resupply from Earth would be prohibitively
expensive, experts say, so exploiting Red Planet resources is crucial to
making pioneering manned missions affordable in the short term and Mars settlement sustainable over the long haul. Read more...
IBM Scientists Show Blueprints for Brainlike Computing
To create a computer as powerful as the human brain, perhaps we first need to build one that works more like a brain. Today, at the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks in Dallas, IBM researchers will unveil a radically new computer architecture designed to bring that goal within reach. Using simulations of enormous complexity, they show that the architecture, named TrueNorth, could lead to a new generation of machines that function more like biological brains.
The announcement builds on IBM’s ongoing projects in cognitive computing. In 2011, the research team released computer chips that use a network of “neurosynaptic cores” to manage information in a way that resembles the functioning of neurons in a brain (see “IBM’s New Chips Compute More Like We Do”). With TrueNorth, the researchers demonstrate a way to use those chips for specific tasks, and they show that the approach could be used to build, among other things, a more efficient biologically inspired visual sensor.
“It doesn’t make sense to take a programming language from the previous era and try to adapt it to a new architecture. It’s like a square peg in a round hole,” said Dharmendra S. Modha, lead researcher. “You have to rethink the very notion of what programming means.” Read more...
The announcement builds on IBM’s ongoing projects in cognitive computing. In 2011, the research team released computer chips that use a network of “neurosynaptic cores” to manage information in a way that resembles the functioning of neurons in a brain (see “IBM’s New Chips Compute More Like We Do”). With TrueNorth, the researchers demonstrate a way to use those chips for specific tasks, and they show that the approach could be used to build, among other things, a more efficient biologically inspired visual sensor.
“It doesn’t make sense to take a programming language from the previous era and try to adapt it to a new architecture. It’s like a square peg in a round hole,” said Dharmendra S. Modha, lead researcher. “You have to rethink the very notion of what programming means.” Read more...
Business term of the day - Term for August 20, 2013: "Business transformation"
Source: Wikipedia
Business transformation is about making fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a shift in market environment.
When business transformation is used
The need for business transformation may be caused by external changes in the market such as an organisation's products or services being out of date, funding or income streams being changed, new regulations coming into force or market competition becoming more intense. This management approach is widely used:
to increase revenue or market share
to improve customer satisfaction
to cut costs
Components
Business transformation is achieved by realigning the way staff work, how the organisation is structured and how technology is used. Typically organisations go through several stages in transforming themselves:
recognising the need to change and gaining consensus amongst stakeholders that dramatic change is necessary
agreeing what form the change should take, the objectives of the change and a vision that describes a better future
understanding what the organisation is changing from and what needs to change in detail
designing the new organisational way of working and its support and management
testing and implementing changes, usually in waves, typically over a number of years
bedding in the change so that the organisation cannot move back to how it was and achieves the intended benefits
Transformation examples
Examples of organisational transformation include:
General Motors transformation and restructuring
BBC's Delivering Quality First programme
British Airways strategic transformation programme in response to low cost airlines
Business transformation is about making fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a shift in market environment.
When business transformation is used
The need for business transformation may be caused by external changes in the market such as an organisation's products or services being out of date, funding or income streams being changed, new regulations coming into force or market competition becoming more intense. This management approach is widely used:
to increase revenue or market share
to improve customer satisfaction
to cut costs
Components
Business transformation is achieved by realigning the way staff work, how the organisation is structured and how technology is used. Typically organisations go through several stages in transforming themselves:
recognising the need to change and gaining consensus amongst stakeholders that dramatic change is necessary
agreeing what form the change should take, the objectives of the change and a vision that describes a better future
understanding what the organisation is changing from and what needs to change in detail
designing the new organisational way of working and its support and management
testing and implementing changes, usually in waves, typically over a number of years
bedding in the change so that the organisation cannot move back to how it was and achieves the intended benefits
Transformation examples
Examples of organisational transformation include:
General Motors transformation and restructuring
BBC's Delivering Quality First programme
British Airways strategic transformation programme in response to low cost airlines
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