Getting Power From Airborne Energy Waves; cheap parts to create a device that can capture energy waves wirelessly and turn them into power at roughly the same efficiency—37%—as solar panels achieve in converting sunlight

Getting Power From Airborne Energy Waves

A new device has been developed by Duke University researchers

DANIEL AKST

Nov. 15, 2013 8:19 p.m. ET

Imagine motion sensors in a home-security system that power themselves from the energy waves permeating your home. Or earthquake sensors that could derive enough power to work from nearby cellular towers. Duke University researchers have taken a step in that direction by using cheap parts to create a device that can capture energy waves wirelessly and turn them into power at roughly the same efficiency—37%—as solar panels achieve in converting sunlight. Read more of this post

Most of the world’s solar panels are facing the wrong direction

Most of the world’s solar panels are facing the wrong direction

By Christopher Mims @mims November 15, 2013

You’d think it would be easy: the sun is “up,” and, like leaves and basking reptiles, solar panels should face in that general direction. But most installers of solar panels, especially the ones for homes, follow conventional wisdom handed down from architects, which holds that in the northern hemisphere, windows and solar panels should face south. Read more of this post

US garment makers tailor an industry around staying at home

November 17, 2013 12:41 pm

US garment makers tailor an industry around staying at home

By Barney Jopson in Los Angeles

In a corner of sun-kissed Los Angeles, women with superstar looks and skimpy outfits catch the eyes of passersby. The glitz and glamour of Hollywood, however, are far away. Clad in plain tops and hot pants, they are posing in posters on the wall of a drab factory, the very place where their clothes were made. Welcome to American Apparel, a holdout against the forces of globalisation. Its thrumming sewing machines and quick-fingered workers are producing the kind of $20 T-shirts that its rivals have long since bought from low-cost factories in Asia. Read more of this post

Three Reasons Why Costco Is Beating Wal-Mart And Target

Three Reasons Why Costco Is Beating Wal-Mart And Target

ASHLEY LUTZ NOV. 15, 2013, 2:23 PM 12,274 53

Business at Costco is thriving.

The retailer is posting gains even as competitors like Wal-Mart and Target have struggled to attract cash-strapped consumers.  Analysts at Trefis have pinpointed a few reasons for Costco’s incredible success.

1. Customers want deals. It’s estimated that shoppers can save up to 55% on groceries from buying in bulk at warehouse chains, write the analysts at Trefis. Costco also keeps prices low by keeping store displays at a minimum and offering fewer items. The retailer only marks up merchandise 15%, compared with a 25% average for most grocery chains. “Due to these bargains, the warehouse club industry sales have grown at a higher rate than general merchandise store sales over the last decade,” the analysts write.

2. Costco is hyper-focused on local markets. The brand “grants its local store managers some discretion over the products that are kept in stores,” the analysts at Trefis write. Demand for salsa is highest in the Southwest region of the U.S., so stores there are sure to stay stocked up, for example.

3. Costco changes its brands often.  “Customers always find something new at its stores and get a ‘treasure hunt’ experience,” say the Trefis analysts. The retailer occasionally offers some high-end items like Coach purses and Dom Perignon champagne to further intrigue shoppers.

Store Stalin Hated Extending Luxury Brands Across Russia

Store Stalin Hated Extending Luxury Brands Across Russia

On rainy days, the GUM mall on Moscow’s Red Square swarms with tourists. Unfortunately for GUM, the hordes seeking shelter tend to do more looking than buying, in large part because the big-brand fashions there cost about 50 percent more than they do in Paris or London. That’s a problem for GUM’s owner, a closely held Russian retailer called Bosco di Ciliegi. Without the reliable cash from tourists that fuels profits at department stores like Galeries Lafayette in Paris or London’s Harrods, Bosco has started to look beyond its flagship to new outlets across Russia, where it can win over local shoppers rather than visitors. Read more of this post

Starbucks loses ‘Charbucks’ appeal

Starbucks loses ‘Charbucks’ appeal

Fri, Nov 15 2013

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Starbucks Corp has failed to persuade a federal appeals court to stop a small, family-owned New Hampshire roaster from selling coffee known as “Charbucks.” Ruling in a case that began in 2001, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Black Bear Micro Roastery and its owner, Wolfe’s Borough Coffee Inc, may keep selling “Charbucks Blend,” “Mister Charbucks” and “Mr. Charbucks” coffee. Read more of this post

In a North Face Jacket, a Reversible Appeal; The successful maker of jackets and other outdoor gear keeps walking the tightrope between exclusivity and the mass market

November 16, 2013

In a North Face Jacket, a Reversible Appeal

By ALINA TUGEND

Todd Spaletto, the president of the North Face, says it doesn’t know who its typical consumer is. “We don’t measure,” he said. “We don’t look at average age or where they live.”

It started when I bought a North Face jacket. Of course, I was aware of the brand’s popularity. But it wasn’t until I got my own that I realized how omnipresent it was. That particularly struck home one day when I, a middle-aged woman, was getting out of my car. I glanced up at the young man walking nearby. He was wearing the same jacket. Usually when a brand moves from urban chic to suburban moms, or from elite athletes to everyday wear, it loses some luster. But the North Face seems to have escaped that fate, and is embraced by the city student, the rural rancher and just about everyone in between. Read more of this post

15 Awesome Yoga Brands Besides Lululemon

15 Awesome Yoga Brands Besides Lululemon

ASHLEY LUTZ NOV. 15, 2013, 11:43 AM 26,138 1

Lululemon customers are furious since founder Chip Wilson commented last week that his pants don’t work for everyone. The firestorm from the comments, and Wilson’s controversial apology, have blown the door wide open for Lululemon’s competition, according to a report by Sterne Agee.  “Based on our checks and retail experience, we believe that the core customer has been alienated and will begin to look for yoga and active-wear pants … from numerous other brands,” the analysts write.  Fortunately, spurned Lululemon customers have no shortage of options for new yoga-wear brands.  Some, like Gap’s Athleta, are huge. Others are more niche brands that can be ordered online.  Read more of this post

Salim’s First Pacific Reveals a Sweet Tooth for Philippine Sugar Producer; acquires 34% stake in Roxas Holdings (RHI), the Philippines’ third-largest sugar producer, for $57m

Salim’s First Pacific Reveals a Sweet Tooth for Philippine Sugar Producer

By Johan Mulyadi on 12:30 pm November 16, 2013.
First Pacific, a Hong Kong-based investment company owned by Indonesia’s Salim family, has announced it is spending $57 million for a slice of the Philippines’ growing agriculture sector. The expansion will come through the planned acquisition of a 34 percent stake in Roxas Holdings (RHI), the Philippines’ third-largest sugar producer. First Pacific teamed up with Indofood Agri Resources, an agriculture division of the Salim family’s noodle maker Indofood Sukses Makmur, to form a joint venture named First Pacific Natural Resources to carry out the acquisition. Read more of this post

Beware the Cotton Glut; China has been building cotton stockpiles for more than two years. When it begins to release that inventory, look out below.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2013

Beware the Cotton Glut

By ALEXANDRA WEXLER | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

China has been building cotton stockpiles for more than two years. When it begins to release that inventory, look out below.

Cotton futures are set to unravel. China possesses nearly 60% of the world’s cotton, after purchasing the fiber from its own farmers and abroad since late 2011. That was the year prices spiked to a post-Civil War high of $2.27 a pound, and China, the world’s largest cotton consumer, had to scramble to find enough fiber to fulfill its needs.

Read more of this post

Japan’s mega-banks struggling to shut out mobsters amid ‘anti-social’ loans scandal

Mega-banks struggling to shut out mobsters amid ‘anti-social’ loans scandal

JIJI

NOV 16, 2013

The nation’s three mega-banks are still struggling to shut out yakuza and other “anti-social” groups, sources in the industry say. The issue entered the spotlight after the Financial Services Agency in September scolded Mizuho Bank for failing to halt lending to mobsters via consumer lending unit Orient Corp. What started as a local scandal involving so-called tie-up loans has now developed into an industrywide problem encompassing loans extended directly by the mega-banks themselves. Read more of this post

Japan’s Mammoth Pension Fund Set to Evolve; Recommended Changes Could Be Sea Change in the Way Japanese Retirement Money Is Invested

Japan’s Mammoth Pension Fund Set to Evolve

Recommended Changes Could Be Sea Change in the Way Japanese Retirement Money Is Invested

ELEANOR WARNOCK

Nov. 15, 2013 8:45 p.m. ET

Japan’s $1.2 trillion public-pension fund should be remade as a new, independent entity, a panel tasked with proposing an overhaul of the fund will likely recommend—in a step that could presage a sea change in the way trillions of yen in Japanese retirement money is invested. Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the world’s biggest pool of pension money, is under the control of the health ministry, resulting in an ultraconservative investment menu of stocks and bonds. The fund is also bound by strict rules that have limited direct investment to Japanese government bonds, which are currently the lowest-yielding sovereign debt in the world. Read more of this post

Who Pays When India’s Billionaires Don’t Go Bust?

Who Pays When India’s Billionaires Don’t Go Bust?

Last month, the business empire of Eike Batista, once the world’s seventh-richest man and a mascot of economically resurgent Brazil, collapsed. The disaster ought to focus our minds on the perils of credit-fueled economic growth and highly leveraged corporations not just in Brazil but also in other BRICS countries. Batista secured extraordinary loans and investments from a government bank against the promise of high productivity from his oil fields; he used taxpayers’ money to fund a lavish lifestyle for himself, with such plutocratic accessories as fast cars, yachts and a wife who was a former Playboy model. His debt-fueled engine spluttered to a stop when his fields were exposed as dry and his flagship oil company, OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA, was left with no cash to service debts amounting to more than $5 billion. Read more of this post

Kotak Adds Bank Network to Trump Ambani to DBS: Corporate India

Kotak Adds Bank Network to Trump Ambani to DBS: Corporate India

Billionaire Uday Kotak’s bank plans to double its branch network in the next three years to head off new competitors for India’s $1.2 trillion of bank deposits. Mumbai-based Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. (KMB), which has the nation’s highest net interest margins, will open 500 new branches at locations including small towns and villages to shelter itself from the local subsidiaries of foreign banks and new domestic rivals, Chief Financial Officer Jaimin Mukund Bhatt said in a Nov. 12 interview. Read more of this post

India missed the bus; need firm leadership: Vikram Limaye; the MD and CEO of IDFC feels quite disappointed with the way things have progressed in the country after his shift in 2005

India missed the bus; need firm leadership: Vikram Limaye

Vikram Limaye quit his Wall Street job because he wanted to work in the Indian government and didn’t mind the monetary loss because ‘there is more to life than money’. However, today the managing director and CEO of IDFC feels quite disappointed with the way things have progressed in the country after his shift in 2005. “We could have actually attracted all the capital that we needed to build out the country, whether it is from an infrastructure perspective, whether it is from a manufacturing perspective. We could have been in a completely different zone today,” he told CNBC-TV18. Read more of this post

How the “Alibaba of India” is teaching India to trust online shopping

How the “Alibaba of India” is teaching India to trust online shopping

By Lily Kuo @lilkuo November 16, 2013

Quartz continues its series profiling companies around the world experiencing explosive growth.

A lack of trust is holding back online shopping in India, a market some call the world’s last major frontier for e-commerce. The country is home to a quickly expanding middle class and millions of new internet users. But wariness about online shopping, poor infrastructure, and a low penetration of bank accounts have meant that online retail accounts for only 1% (paywall) of the country’s $450 billion consumer market. Read more of this post

Headwinds hamper Hong Kong’s search for a new identity

November 17, 2013 8:02 pm

Headwinds hamper Hong Kong’s search for a new identity

By Demetri Sevastopulo

One of the traditional pastimes in Hong Kong is worrying out loud about whether the Chinese territory is losing ground to Singapore as a global financial centre. But recently, Singapore has been shunted out of the conversation in favour of Shanghai, mainland China’s financial capital. Everyone from Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man, to diners at local restaurants, are asking if the newly unveiled Shanghai free-trade zone will eventually eat Hong Kong’s lunch. Read more of this post

Japan’s Banks Find It Hard to Lend Easy Money; Dearth of Borrowers Illustrates Difficulty in Japan’s Program to Increase Money Supply

Japan’s Banks Find It Hard to Lend Easy Money

Dearth of Borrowers Illustrates Difficulty in Japan’s Program to Increase Money Supply

PHRED DVORAK and ELEANOR WARNOCK

Nov. 17, 2013 11:01 p.m. ET

OKAYAMA, Okayama Pref.—At Koeido Co., a 156-year-old sweets maker based in this city in southwest Japan, chairman Shuichi Takeda says he feels the country may

finally be coming out of a 20-year funk. Sales of Koeido’s sweet millet dumplings are holding up. The company is spending around 80 million yen ($800,000) to renovate two shops—a sign of how Japan’s economy is showing signs of life, lifted in part by a flood of easy money from the central bank that has boosted stocks and helped spur growth. Read more of this post

Korean online fashion brands are emerging as new forces in the shopping industry

2013-11-15 16:49

Online brands emerge as new force

By Rachel Lee
Online fashion brands are emerging as new forces in the shopping industry.  Over the last few years, quite a large number of up-and-coming clothing manufacturers have grown fast enough to compete with established brands in the market. According to industry sources, consumers have increasingly shown interest in those online clothing brands for both the quality and price. Read more of this post

Korean state firms are up for an immediate and major overhaul, starting with payrolls and CEOs

2013-11-15 16:50

Major shakeup to hit state-owned firms

By Kim Tae-jong
State firms are up for an immediate and major overhaul, starting with payrolls and CEOs, government officials said Friday. The Korea Land & Housing Corp. (KLH) is likely to be the first target as it has accrued the largest debt, currently 147.8 trillion won. The Korea Electric Power Corp. and Korea Gas Corp. are also saddled with heavy debts of 59.5 trillion won and 35.3 trillion won, respectively. KORAIL has the highest debt ratio of 500 percent. Read more of this post

S Koreans fight against tuition tide

S Koreans fight against tuition tide

In the second instalment of a two-part special report, TODAY looks at South Korea’s efforts to regulate its multi-billion-dollar tuition industry. After a ban on tuition in 1980 failed spectacularly, the Korean government has adopted a more sophisticated approach: Since 2004, it has ordered schools to hold after-school classes and offer free online lessons, as well as imposed a 10pm curfew on the operating hours of tuition centres.

BY NG JING YNG –

9 HOURS 26 MIN AGO

In the second instalment of a two-part special report, TODAY looks at South Korea’s efforts to regulate its multi-billion-dollar tuition industry. After a ban on tuition in 1980 failed spectacularly, the Korean government has adopted a more sophisticated approach: Since 2004, it has ordered schools to hold after-school classes and offer free online lessons, as well as imposed a 10pm curfew on the operating hours of tuition centres. Apart from government efforts, individuals and organisations have also come forward to fight against the tuition craze and advocate for better education policies as a long-term solution. Slowly but surely, the tide is changing — and Singapore could take a leaf out of South Korea’s experience as it seeks to put a lid on the demand for tuition. Read more of this post

Critics question Vietnam US$757mil road project, World Bank

Updated: Friday November 15, 2013 MYT 11:58:20 AM

Critics question Vietnam US$757mil road project, World Bank

HANOI: For a firm short on capital with a background in textiles, property and bottling water, Bitexco   wasn’t the obvious choice to build a $757 million highway backed by the World Bank in Vietnam’s first-ever public-private partnership. There was no tender or bidding for the project, even though the communist government had committed to a level playing field in public-private projects. Investors say the no-bid contract – and the World Bank’s support for it – has set a bad precedent for a country trying to shake off a reputation for entrenched graft, bureaucracy and vested interests. Read more of this post