According to The Australian Financial Review, an electronic shelf label tells the customers not only the price but the provenance – where the lamb or beef came from, whether it's grass-fed or organic – when it was made and how many calories it contains.
If the meal kit is close to its use-by date, the price on the electronic ticket might be a few dollars lower than it was earlier in the week, having been automatically updated by store staff.
The woman drops the meal kit as she scrambles to scan it with her smart phone to skip the checkout queue, but within seconds a robot scoots over to clean up the mess.
It’s not a scene from The Jetsons; it’s coming to a supermarket near you, and probably sooner than you think.

https://www.afr.com/business/retail/fmcg/the-robots-coming-to-an-aisle-near-you-20190711-p5267l
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If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/9773361

According to The Australian Financial Review, packing costs at the centre are half the cost of store selection, and mistakes are rare – order accuracy is 98.8 per cent – almost eliminating the need for vans to deliver replacements.
When Ocado opened the Erith CFC last May, among the scores of guests checking out the facility was a team from Coles, led by Alister Jordan, chief executive of Coles Online and Coles Express.
Coles was on a two-year global mission to find the best way to make its fast-growing online grocery business profitable.
Coles' online sales grew 30 per cent last year and will crack the $1 billion mark this year, but the business is yet to break even.
After 18 months of negotiations, Coles signed a long-term deal with Ocado  this week to use its so-called "smart platform" technology, which gives the supermarket access to the bee-hive fulfilment technology, a new online grocery website and home-delivery solutions, including last-mile routing – getting goods to their final destination.
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https://www.afr.com/business/retail/the-robots-coming-to-choose-your-groceries-20190328-p518dk

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/3304542 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group will consider diversifying into the autonomous transport sector and is eyeing a driverless future on public roads based on the miner's successes with the technology across its iron ore mining operations.
Fortescue said it was setting up an autonomous transport research and development centre in Karratha, in the resources-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia, aimed at accelerating the rollout of driverless vehicles in urban environments.
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https://www.afr.com/business/mining/fortescue-on-the-road-to-a-driverless-future-20190321-p51681

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1098904 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, farming insights business FluroSat graduated from Cicada Innovations' GrowLab in 2017 and is now scaling into the US.
Its product FluroSense uses the power of deep spectral insight to deliver early, accurate and actionable information on crop health and nutrition, drawing on the data it collects via hand-held devices, drones or earth observation satellites. The technology enables farmers to make better decisions about the management of their crops and to cut their water usage by up to 25 per cent while boosting yields by a quarter and using two-thirds of the usual amount of fertiliser.
FluroSat has its roots in the University of Sydney's "Inventing the Future" course. The project was born out of the founders' desire to find innovative solutions to complex problems of global scale and fascination with earth observation, the company says.

https://www.afr.com/news/special-reports/transforming-innovation-from-the-lab-into-business-20181108-h17oa7

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
​https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/5314758
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According to the Australian Financial Review, Infinite Water has provided the first HYDROXON unit to Bangladesh at no cost, on the back of an ongoing relationship it has had with the country since Mr Duta developed the initial technology while working on removing arsenic from groundwater there 12 years ago.
The first water-treatment system was set up in the village of Alampur, where 25 people have died in the past five years because of exposure to arsenic in the local water. About one in 12 people in the village of 3900 had been ill before the system was installed.
It is HYDROXON's first commercial trial and Dr Walczuk said she hoped the results would trigger more work in developing nations, as well as industrial contracts with manufacturers and agricultural companies, as the system could also be used to decontaminate waste water.
"At the global level the total water treatment market is around $700 billion today," Mr Marquard said. "But there are no dominant players in terms of the total market, with the biggest players still only having a very small percentage of the market."
The HYDROXON systems are able to produce 5000 litres to a million litres of clean water a day. The machines are highly energy efficient and can produce 200,000 litres powered from a household power point.

https://www.afr.com/technology/australian-water-treatment-startup-infinite-water-saving-lives-in-bangladesh-20181218-h198gs

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
​https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/3979088 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, iron ore magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group and CSIRO have joined forced to deliver a $20 million deal to develop and commercialise new hydrogen technologies to support the creation of a new hydrogen industry in Australia.
The deal, announced in Brisbane recently, include a commercialisation agreement of CSIRO's metal membrane - a technology that allows the extraction of pure hydrogen from ammonia.
Mr Forrest said Fortescue was keen to get involved to unlock the potential of hydrogen which could be the low-emission fuel of the future, with a $19.1 million contribution over the next five years.

https://www.afr.com/news/politics/andrew-forrest-gives-20m-to-help-kickstart-a-hydrogen-industry-in-australia-20181121-h1871p
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If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
​https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1868733

According to The Australian Financial Review, Perth residents will be among the first people in Australia to summon driverless cars on a mobile phone app and zoom around local streets after a French "Intellicar" arrived in the Western Australian capital.
Perth is one of only three cities, along with Paris and an undisclosed North American city, to trial the autonomous on-demand electric car, which is made by France's NAVYA, after WA automobile club RAC successfully introduced the Intellibus in 2016.
The Intellicar, which will start trials in controlled spaces this week, is "substantially more complex" to operate than the Intellibus because it doesn't follow a fixed route, RAC Group's chief executive Terry Agnew told The Australian Financial Review.
"It's time to build on what we've done with the Intellibus," Mr Agnew said. Other states have been running trials of driverless shuttle buses, but have not yet put driverless cars on public roads.
The Intellicars can carry up to six passengers each, and have a maximum operating speed of 90 km/h with a recommended operating speed of 20 to 50 km/h.

Ref: https://www.afr.com/business/driverless-cars-are-coming-as-ondemand-intellicar-prepares-to-hit-perth-streets-20180912-h15a43

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
​https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1449814
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QUT will lead a $7.5 million research project to establish a pilot plant producing hydrogen from renewable energy.
Funding of $3.35 million was announced today by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) as part of ARENA’s Research and Development Program – Renewable Hydrogen for Export and is supported by financial and in-kind support from industry and university project partners.
The pilot plant is planned to be installed at the Redlands Research Facility south of Brisbane and use locally produced solar energy to extract hydrogen from treated non-drinking water, such as seawater.
The project is being led by Professor Ian Mackinnon from QUT’s Institute for Future Environments who said it was anticipated that hydrogen would become a major clean carrier of energy in the future.
Professor Mackinnon said energy would be drawn from a Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) array at the Redlands facility which QUT has been testing in an existing joint project with Japanese energy giant Sumitomo Electric Industries who is also one of the pilot plant partners.
“This solar energy will be supplemented by commercially available battery packs to extract hydrogen from treated water,” he said.
“The hydrogen will then be fed into a fuel cell and back into the grid to re-supply power to the local system.” 
Professor Mackinnon said the collaborative project also involves Griffith University, Swinburne University of Technology, The University of Tokyo and industry partner Energy Developments Pty Limited.

https://www.qut.edu.au/news?id=135488

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
​https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1825968
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According to The Australian Financial Review, on a 15-hectare block in a new subdivision bordered by the Westernport Highway and Cranbourne rail line, Woolworths has recently finished building the biggest and most advanced automated distribution centre (DC) in the southern hemisphere.
The size of 20 soccer fields and 45 metres or 10 double-decker buses high at its tallest point, the DC looks more like an airport than a warehouse for packaged food and groceries.
Inside, 14 kilometres of high-speed conveyors designed by Dutch firm Vanderlande zig-zag around the building, taking pallets from receiving docks to storage racks constructed from 2000 tonnes of steel, while eight fully automated depalletising stations separate pallets into cartons.
Thirteen automated cranes, each weighing 35 tonnes, stow the slowest moving stock in a 17-level high bay storage area capable of holding more than 60,000 pallets.
At the other end of the site, 50 imposing robotic heads are working in pairs packing 650 cartons an hour, almost four times faster than in a manual DC, on pallets destined to be sent to stores.

Ref: https://www.afr.com/business/retail/robots-do-the-heavy-lifting-at-woolworths-hightech-shed-20180906-h151h3

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
​https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1187905 
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According to the MSN News, an extraordinary new anti-ageing technique could see humans live to 150 years old and allow them to regrow their organs by 2020.
Harvard Professor David Sinclair and researchers from the University of New South Wales developed the new process, which involves reprogramming cells.
Dr Sinclair said the technique could allow people to regenerate organs, and even allow paralysis sufferers to move again, with human trials due within two years.
The same researchers also found they could increase the lifespan of mice by ten per cent by giving them a vitamin B derivative pill.
Professor Sinclair said he hoped the pill would be available to the public within five years and cost the same each day as a cup of coffee.
'We do not recommend people go out and take NAD precursors as they have not yet formally tested for safety,' he said.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/stunning-anti-ageing-breakthrough-could-see-humans-live-to-150-and-regenerate-organs-by-2020-for-the-price-of-a-coffee-a-day/ar-BBMKkn3?ocid=spartanntp

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
​https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1507902779
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