Ray S. Eñano, Editor business@thestandard.com.ph extrastory2000@gmail.com
B4
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 2017
Business
Intel set to acquire Mobileye for $15b JERUSALEM―Intel will buy Israeli car tech firm Mobileye for more than $15 billion (14 billion euros), the companies said Monday, in a deal signaling the US computer chip giant’s commitment to technology for self-driving vehicles. Israeli media reported that the deal worth approximately $15.3 billion was the largest ever cross-border acquisition for an Israeli tech firm. It comes with Intel and Mobileye previously collaborating with German automaker BMW to develop self-driving cars. Intel and Mobileye said they expected to combine to become a global leader in “autonomous driving” that could provide the technology at a lower cost. “The combination is expected to accelerate innovation for the automotive industry and position Intel as a leading technology provider in the fast-growing market for highly and fully autonomous vehicles,” it said. “Intel estimates the vehicle systems, data and services market opportunity to be up to $70 billion by 2030.” Last year, BMW announced that it was joining forces with Mobileye and Intel on a selfdrive project for “highly and fully automated driving” to be commercially available by 2021, called the BMW iNext. BMW announced in January it would deploy 40 self-driving vehicles for tests in the United States and Europe this year. In August, Mobileye and UK-based auto-equipment maker Delphi said they were teaming up to develop an autonomous driving system which would be ready for vehicle-makers in 2019. Nearly all the major global automakers are involved in testing autonomous or semiautonomous vehicles, with some expecting full autonomy within a few years. Mobileye, whose speciality includes systems for accident avoidance, has concluded an agreement with Volkswagen on road data technology as well. AFP
CRAFTS FAIR. German Chancellor Angela Merkel (right) and Hans Peter Wollseifer (left), president of the German Confederation of Skilled
Crafts, watch leather gloves during their visit at a booth of the international trade crafts fair in Munich, southern Germany, on March 13, 2017. AFP
US Fed starts two-day meeting on higher rate By Douglas Gillison
W
ASHINGTON--The US Federal Reserve was due to begin a two-day meeting Tuesday, having signaled it is likely to raise the benchmark interest rate as the world’s largest economy gains steam. Any increase in the key federal funds rate would come a bit earlier than had been expected at the start of the year, with central bankers prodded to move by continued strong job creation and accelerating inflation. The Fed move would come just as President Donald Trump lays the groundwork for expansionary economic policies, having pledged to return the United States to four percent annual growth by cutting taxes and regulation and boosting spending on infrastructure. The policy details, however, have been scarce. The Federal Open Market Committee, which sets the federal funds rate, last moved in
December but stood pat last month, adopting a wait-and-see approach as the new administration entered office. The FOMC is due to announce its next decision on Wednesday afternoon. The target interest rate now stands at a range of 0.5 to 0.75 percent. Even after a quarter-point increase, it would still be low by historical standards. “I think the Fed will say it was entirely prudent to take one more step right now,” Jon Faust, a former advisor to the Federal Reserve Board, told AFP recently. “If things clearly continue in the same direction, we’ll take more. But that will depend on us
seeing what happens in the data.” The unemployment rate fell below five percent in May and the US economy has been adding jobs at an average of more than 200,000 net new positions over the last three months. January also saw the Fed’s favored inflation measure hit its fastest 12-month pace in four years. The Fed will get one more piece of inflation data Wednesday, with the release of the latest consumer price index for February. The question for Fed watchers now will be how many times the Fed may act during the rest of 2017, with the next meeting set to occur in June and a total of three rate increases expected this year. Randall Kroszner, a former Federal Reserve Board governor, told AFP that with the economy beginning to hum, Fed Chair Janet Yellen was “certainly open” to the possibility of raising rates more quickly. “They do want things to be gradual but they may need to
move at a slightly faster pace,” Kroszner said. Fed Chair Janet Yellen may offer additional clues during a press conference in Washington 30 minutes after the 2 p.m. release of a post-meeting statement and new projections. The so-called “ dot plot,” which displays individual rate forecasts of officials on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee, will probably continue to show three hikes this year as appropriate, according to the median estimate. It was last updated in December and will cover projections out to 2019, plus an estimate for the longer run. That would imply that a flurry of signals from policy makers in recent weeks about the likelihood of tightening in March was more about a shift in the timing than in the number of increases the FOMC is likely to approve this year, according to Jonathan Wright, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University. AFP, Bloomberg
Oil prices continue fall, stay below $49 OIL held losses below $49 a barrel before US government data forecast to show record crude inventories expanded further. Futures were little changed in New York after losing 9.2 percent the previous six sessions. US stockpiles probably increased by 3 million barrels for a 10th week of gains, according to a Bloomberg survey before data from the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday. Opec is due to release its monthly report Tuesday that will show production figures for February, while Kuwait wants to extend the six-month Opec-led deal to cut output beyond June. Oil last week broke below $50 a barrel for the first time since December as rising US supply has swamped the impact of supply reductions from members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and 11 other nations that started Jan. 1. While Opec Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said that February compliance to the deal will be higher than January, Russia’s Rosneft PJSC said higher US output is the “ main threat” to the agreement. “The market will continue to watch for Opec compliance as US production surges,” said David Lennox, a resources analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney. “The price is unlikely to collapse below $40. If US output continues to climb, there is no way Opec will extend the cuts into the second half to increase the price for American companies to get the advantage.” West Texas Intermediate for April delivery was at $48.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 6 cents, at 7:55 a.m. in London. Total volume traded was about 48 percent below the 100-day average. The contract fell 9 cents to $48.40 on Monday, the lowest close since Nov. 29. Brent for May settlement was 2 cents higher at $51.37 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark traded at a premium of $2.43 to May WTI. US crude inventories have climbed to 528.4 million barrels, the highest level in weekly EIA data compiled since 1982. The nation is pumping 9.09 million barrels a day, the most in more than a year. The industry-funded American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to release its own weekly figures on Tuesday. Bloomberg
Military-grade tech to monitor eggplants rather than explosives By Gwen Ackerman ON A rooftop in the JewishArab Tel Aviv neighborhood of Jaffa, a former military technologist and an ex-journalist sit in a transparent bio-dome where their robot is busy learning how to grow food. Flux IoT’s Eddy, a robot measuring less than a foot tall and resembling a life buoy, is built with military-grade sensors and armed with image-processing technology. Its inventors intend it to become the industry standard for commercial and amateur indoor farmers who want to grow pesticide-free, water-efficient crops via hydroponics―a method of growing plants without soil. Eddy sits in the growing reservoir, and users can stay updated on their crops’ progress via a mobile app, where information gleaned from fellow farmers can help them know when to change the lighting or add nutrients. Currently closing a $2-million seed funding to start manufacturing, Flux is planning another financing round of as much as $8 million later this year, its size dependent on how many robots sell on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo Inc., said chief executive officer Blake Burris. It’s also growing its US team, primarily based in Colorado,
while research and development will remain in Israel. The Israeli team is led by co-founder and chief technology officer Amichai Yifrach, who previously built nano sniffers to detect explosives and image processing tools to protect US troops at checkpoints in Afghanistan and Iraq. “In the army you build perimeter security using imaging processes and webcams that can see things the human eye can’t,” said Flux VP of marketing and co-founder Karin Kloosterman, a former journalist. “With that technology Eddy can look at a plant and detect nutrient deficiency and tell you what it is. Right now you have to be a trained agronomist to know.” Zirra.com Ltd., an Israeli startup that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze the private tech market, says Flux’s offering “poses significant disruption in their relevant space,” but that the price of the robot could be a “showstopper.” Burris says they plan to sell Eddy for $179, and expect to sell anywhere between 10,000 to 25,000 robots this year. Rival SmartBee Controllers, which provides water content sensors, sells starter systems starting at $2,500. A water content sensor alone costs between $350 and
Karin Kloosterman, a former journalist, sits in a pop up plastic greenhouse where tiny robot ‘Eddy,’ coded with a sixth sense for plants, is being developed to help produce food from water in the Jaffa district of Tel Aviv, Israel, on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017. Bloomberg
$400.
Green shoots Hydroponic farming is growing in importance as government agencies such as the US Department of Agriculture reflect on the potential impact of industrial or conventional farming, including soil productivity decline, pollution and depletion of natu-
ral resources such as water. According to global market research firm IBISWorld, the US hydroponic industry alone will reach $856.8 million by 2021, from $821 million in 2016 and the number of businesses will jump from 2,347 to more than 3,000. Flux sees home gardeners as a target market, and in the
US 42 million households grow food at home, according to The National Gardening Association. Scotts Miracle-Grow Co., the world’s largest seller of lawn and garden products, bought an Arizona-based company in October to boost its hydroponics offering. New Zealand-based Bluelab, a global supplier of testing and
control equipment for hydroponics, gives basic readings that are linked to a computer and is also working on a mobile app. One of the big markets for hydroponic equipment are cannabis growers. Flux will assemble the first few thousand robots in Israel, and if demand expands as expected, manufacturing will move to China shortly thereafter. The intersect in hydroponics is also spreading between worlds. Elon Musk has plans for a Martian colony, NASA is trying hydroponics out in space, and the European Space Agency is cooperating with the Space Farm Collective led by a Netherlands Border Labs team on ways to grow food on planets other than Earth. Thieme Hennis, head of the Space Farm Collective, is testing out Eddy to see how it might help a citizen science project called Watch Me Grow, aimed at finding plants that will grow best in space, and improve ways even the public can grow their own food on Earth. “Eddy has to prove itself on a larger scale, but something like this is necessary and offers an interface for non-professional and professional growers alike to understand and ‘talk’ with plants,” said Hennis. Bloomberg