According to The Australian Financial Review, hotel booking tech company SiteMinder has become the country's newest $1 billion tech unicorn, banking more than $100 million in capital from investors such as BlackRock, Ellerston Capital, Pendal Group and AustralianSuper.
The business provides the core technology that has allowed websites such as Agoda and Booking.com to boom, connecting hotels' back-end systems to those of the booking websites so all systems can be updated simultaneously, regardless of whether a booking is made via the hotel or a third-party site.

https://www.afr.com/technology/australia-s-latest-unicorn-revealed-as-blackrock-goes-in-on-siteminder-20200110-p53qe3

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According to The Nikkei Asian Review, a  Japanese developer has begun experimenting with homes that offer free car sharing instead of a parking space as more people in Japan's capital live without their own automobiles.
The new two-story, three-bedroom homes, located near the Nakanobu metro station in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward, represent a first for Mitsui Fudosan Residential, which sells about 400 homes a year in urban neighborhoods.
Homebuyers can use a Mitsui Fudosan group car-sharing service without paying the monthly membership fee of about $9. Prices start at just over 75 million yen ($685,000) for about 80 sq. meters of floor space.
"A growing number of people in urban areas see car parking space as unnecessary," the head of the company's regional development told Nikkei. Some buyers of the new houses got rid of their cars, he said.
Doing without parking also helps the developer conserve space in crowded Tokyo, whose 23 wards are about the size of Singapore and are home to over 9 million people.
The limited site area means the new houses would have needed three stories to create parking spaces, adding to building costs. Without parking, the homes cost less than comparable units of new condominiums nearby, a company official said. The affiliated car-sharing provider has a base in the neighborhood.
More than 50% of condo residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area did not use the units' garages or parking lots in 2018, up from around 20% in 2007, said Yoichi Ikemoto, editor-in-chief of Suumo, a housing information website run by Recruit Sumai.
Citing a 40% increase for average condo prices in the 23 wards of Tokyo over five years, Ikemoto said that "more and more people appear to be giving up owning cars and becoming content with car sharing."
Membership in car-sharing services soared to 1.62 million nationwide in 2019, double the number from three years earlier, according to an estimate from the Foundation for Promoting Personal Mobility and Ecological Transportation.
Tokyu Land has debuted a service providing shared taxi rides to golf courses, teaming with NearMe, which offers a cab-sharing app. The Tokyu group owns many golf courses and housing lots in the suburbs.
"As more young people chose not to own cars, they are also are losing interest in golf," said Shuichi Takano, chief researcher at the Tokyu Fudosan R&D Center.
The spread of car-sharing and ride-hailing services allows people to move freely even if they do not own a vehicle.
Singapore leads in introducing such services. Roads occupy 12% of the land in the city-state, which has 5.7 million people  and can spare little more space for streets and parking lots.
Singapore's Smart Mobility 2030 initiative, unveiled in 2014, calls for achieving a highly mobile society using information technology. Also in 2014, major ride-hailer Grab moved its headquarters to Singapore from Malaysia, boosting activity in the city-state. A government-led electric car sharing service, dubbed BlueSG, was launched in 2017.
With the number of owned automobiles in the country staying at roughly 600,000, Singapore succeeds in curbing traffic jams.
Consumer attitudes toward cars are changing in every country. A survey by Deloitte Tohmatsu Group of ride-hailing users found that younger generations saw less need to own cars. In Japan, more than half of respondents 44 or younger regarded car ownership as unnecessary.
But the rising popularity of car sharing dampens automobile production, which many countries regard as a key industry. Beyond prompting individual automakers to offer such services themselves, the trend could reshape the automotive industry as a whole.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Sharing-Economy/New-Tokyo-homes-ditch-parking-spaces-but-offer-car-sharing

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According to the Nikkei Asian Review, BHP Group and Mitsubishi Corp. are spending an estimated 50 billion yen (US$ 455 million) on autonomous haul trucks and communications infrastructure to slash production costs and improve efficiency at mines, aiming to insulate themselves from price swings.
BHP Mitsubishi Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture of the Anglo-Australian mining major and a unit of the Japanese trading house, will deploy around 90 autonomous dump trucks this year at one of seven mines it operates in eastern Australia. Plans are to enlarge the fleet to 350 in around two years.
Vehicles used will come from the likes of U.S. manufacturer Caterpillar and Japan's Komatsu, which has more than 180 trucks operating under its Autonomous Haulage System in mines around the world.
Conventional dump trucks will be retrofitted with communications devices so that they can be controlled remotely. Using these vehicles can slash a mine's production costs by as much as 15%. The partners will also improve wireless infrastructure, including towers, tapping 5G technology.
BMA co-owner Mitsubishi Development contributed 246.9 billion yen to Mitsubishi's net profit in fiscal 2018, generating roughly 40% of the company's consolidated income. But this shrank to 76.2 billion yen in the April-September half of fiscal 2019 as prices fell amid a loss of global economic momentum. This is why Mitsubishi and others in the industry seek to make their earnings less vulnerable to the vagaries of prices.
Starting this year, BHP and Mitsubishi will also jointly develop a big-data system for mine operation, collecting data on their trucks, utilization rates, weather conditions, production and shipments for artificial-intelligence-aided analysis. The aim is to increase utilization rates for haul trucks by predicting breakdowns, for instance.
These moves will also aid environmental efforts, since operating mines more efficiently means lower carbon dioxide emissions. BHP wants its greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 to be at 2017 levels or less.
BMA is one of the world's largest mining operations, producing about 70 million tons of coal for steelmaking. It also runs a coal terminal.
Rio Tinto and Mitsui & Co. are also ramping up their shift to driverless tech at mines. In December 2018, they rolled out the world's first autonomous freight rail network in Western Australia for transporting iron ore from 15 mines in the Pilbara region to a port via diesel train on roughly 1,700 km of track. The remote control center is located in Perth, some 1,500 km away.
Operation data, vibration levels and weather conditions are analyzed with the help of AI. Damaged tracks are repaired in advance to enhance utilization, helping to increase productivity by several percentage points.
Mitsui operates joint projects with BHP and Rio Tinto. The Australian iron ore business is responsible for an annual 100 billion yen or so of profit at the Japanese trading house.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/Australian-coal-mines-ride-self-driving-wave
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According to The Nikkei Asian Review, as Japanese food wins more fans in the U.S., a wasabi producer based at the foot of the Japan Alps is working to bring the condiment to even more consumers and in different forms.
In addition to its use in sushi, wasabi has become a popular ingredient in salad dressing and sauces. Marui, headquartered in Azumino, Japan, is expanding production in the U.S. to keep up with growing demand, and hopes to boost sales in South America and Europe as well.
Marui founded a joint venture in Los Angeles in 2000 with a local takeout sushi chain. The unit produces and distributes powdered wasabi, dressing and sauces, and also imports a wasabi relish often served with meat from its Japanese parent.
But the plant is reaching its capacity limit, and the venture will move to another facility with about 50% more floor space near Los Angeles sometime after summer. The move, which will cost about 200 million yen ($1.83 million), is expected to more than double capacity.
The U.S. market for wasabi has been growing by about 5% a year, thanks to a seemingly insatiable U.S. appetite for sushi and sashimi. "American consumers also tend to use more wasabi in one sitting than Japanese consumers," Marui President and CEO Akira Iguchi said. The South American market is said to be growing at a double-digit clip as well.
Marui was an early entrant into the U.S. market. Its American unit has enjoyed a more than 20% jump in revenue in the past five years, though it has not published exact figures.
The new facility will allow the company to expand its offerings of wasabi-flavored products like dressing and sauce. "I want to work with distributors to cultivate new markets like South America, Europe and elsewhere," Iguchi said.
Azumino, the Nagano Prefecture city, is known as one of Japan's best areas for growing wasabi. Marui actively stresses its Azumino roots in the home market, and expects overall sales to edge up for the year ending March 31 to just under 2.6 billion yen.
The company is also hoping to expand its footprint in Asia. It began contract manufacturing wasabi products in Vietnam in 2018.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Food-Beverage/No-longer-just-a-sushi-extra-wasabi-gets-its-moment-in-the-sun

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/8503931.html?lang=ja 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, BHP plans to accelerate iron ore exports over the next six months to seize on what analysts expect will be a period of continued strength in prices for Australia's most lucrative commodity export.
Iron ore prices received by BHP over the past six months were 41 per cent higher than in the same period of 2018, and with Brazilian miner Vale promising a weak start to the year, Morgan Stanley believes supply of iron ore will fail to keep pace with strong demand from Chinese steel mills.
The benchmark iron ore price was fetching $US95 per tonne early in January, and Morgan Stanley has forecast an average price of $US93 per tonne until March 31 and $US85 per tonne in the subsequent three months.

https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/bhp-to-jump-on-iron-ore-price-rally-with-export-surge-20200121-p53t6z

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According to The Australian Financial Review, Spanish utility Iberdrola has committed to invest $500 million to build a huge hybrid solar and wind farm project developed by private Irish company DP Energy in South Australia, in a major leap forward for the delayed project.
Construction on the Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park (PAREP) is now expected to start in mid-2020, said DP Energy, which had hoped to get building under way in 2017 but was delayed by the arrangements for transmission connections.
The 320MW renewable project is the first for Iberdrola in Australia, said country manager Fernando Santamaria. It is also the first of DP Energy's pipeline of projects to go ahead in Australia, with the others still in the early stages.
The project will tap the strong South Australian solar resource as well as thermal winds at the head of the Spencer Gulf, which are generated by the increasing temperature difference between land and sea through the day. Some 210MW of the total capacity will be wind power, with 110MW solar.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/iberdrola-sinks-500m-in-sa-wind-solar-venture-20200115-p53rmb
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According to The Australian Financial Review, housing construction is set to pick up in the second half of this year, after sentiment around residential construction posted its biggest lift in six years on the back of an improving property market and access to credit.
The ANZ/Property Council of Australia March 2020 survey pushed an index of expectations for housing construction over the next 12 months back into positive territory for the first time in six quarters, and the 14.6-point increase was the biggest quarterly gain since the December 2013 quarterly survey.
The turnaround in construction expectations follows earlier surveys last year that identified an improvement in credit availability, while official figures last week for November showed the decline in building approvals – an indicator of future housing activity – had likely troughed.
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https://www.afr.com/property/residential/housing-construction-expectations-surge-20200114-p53rax

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According to The Asahi Shimbun, despite a bitter diplomatic row with South Korea and a drop in tourists from that nation, records were broken in 2019 for the number of foreign tourists coming to Japan and the amount they spent.
The Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) released figures on Jan. 17 that showed foreign tourists spent a total of 4.811 trillion yen (US$44 billion), an increase of 6.5 percent over 2018.
The number of foreign tourists increased by 2.2 percent to 31.882 million.
The spending and tourist numbers represented the seventh straight year in which records were set in both areas.
However, the spat with South Korea led to a 25.9-percent decline in tourists from that nation to 5.584 million. The drop was the first since 2011 when the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck.
The decrease meant the ratio of South Korean tourists fell from about 25 percent to 17 percent of the total.
While the decrease was caused in part by the canceling or reduction of some flights to Japan from South Korea, the first week of January showed an improvement in the number of flights in comparison to the end of October, when the winter flight schedule began.
Numbers from other nations were robust.
China topped the list with 9.594 million tourists, a 14.5 percent increase. Tourists from Southeast Asia increased by 15.2 percent while those from Europe, North America and Australia increased by 13.9 percent.
The higher numbers were helped by new routes flown by low-cost carriers as well as the hosting of the Rugby World Cup.
With Tokyo hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020, the government has set goals for the year of 40 million foreign tourists and total spending by such tourists of 8 trillion yen. But to achieve those two goals, the number of foreign tourists will have to increase by about 20 percent over 2019, with each tourist spending 200,000 yen.
However, in 2019, per capita spending by foreign tourists in Japan was only 158,000 yen, an increase of 3.5 percent over 2018.
Hiroshi Tabata, the JTA commissioner, said the Olympics and Paralympics will boost the foreign spotlight on Japan.
“This will be an excellent opportunity to increase the number of occupied airline seats so I hope the public and private sectors work together to reach the goal,” Tabata said.
Per capita spending in 2019 increased, in part, because fans who attended the Rugby World Cup remained in Japan longer than the typical foreign tourist.
Tabata said efforts would be made to improve the offerings provided by tourist destinations so those from Asia will decide to extend their stays by one or two nights.


http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ202001180030.html

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According to The Asahi Shimbun, Summoning a flying taxi to lift you above the city and on to your destination. This may not be far from reality.
Toyota Motor Corp. has invested US$394 million (about 43 billion yen) in a U.S. venture firm that develops aerial vehicles, as the automaker seeks to make its mark in the sky by offering air mobility services.
Toyota will accelerate development of new forms of air transportation by leveraging its expertise in car production and technology development, it announced Jan. 16.
"Air transportation has been a long-term goal for Toyota," company President Akio Toyoda said in a statement. "We hope to deliver freedom of movement and enjoyment to customers everywhere, on land, and now, in the sky."
Headquartered in California, Joby Aviation was established in 2009. The company is developing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to offer flying taxi services in the future.
"I am excited to harness Toyota's engineering and manufacturing prowess," JoeBen Bevirt, Joby's founder and CEO, said in a statement released through Toyota.
Toyota said it believes developing eVTOL aircraft will bring synergy to the development of technologies used in next-generation eco-friendly vehicles, as they have many common areas, such as motorization and novel materials.
The automaker also said it will consider entering the air mobility business in collaboration with Joby and plans to flesh out further details, including whether Toyota will mass produce such aircraft.
A number of leading and start-up firms are engaged in increasingly intense competition to develop flying vehicles. SkyDrive Inc., a company in Tokyo founded by young, former Toyota engineers, announced the start of manned test flights of flying vehicles in December.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ202001170039.html

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According to The Australian Financial Review, the little robot autonomously sweeps up and down the harvested crop rows without a farmer or worker in sight. The Robotics and artificial intelligence are the next big technological “quantum leap” for global agriculture.
On a large grain farm near Emerald in central Queensland, Juliet is toiling 24 hours straight without a break, spraying chemicals on weeds in a 200-hectare wheat field.
Instead she is a car-sized lightweight farm robot; the flagbearer for a small Australian company that is leading the world in robotics in agriculture, which has captured the attention of big players such Treasury Wine Estates and Macquarie Agriculture, and lured some of the smartest young brains in artificial intelligence and mechatronics to its unlikely head office in remote rural Queensland.
The masterminds behind Juliet and SwarmFarm Robotics are Andrew and Jocie Bate, a farm couple from Gindie, 30 kilometres south of Emerald, who have spent the past eight years inventing, developing and streamlining farm robots to take their back porch business from pipe dream to commercial reality.

https://www.afr.com/technology/how-a-farm-in-remote-queensland-became-a-high-tech-ai-hub-20200116-p53s5f

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/ai4549451.html 
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