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Several times each year, the nation faces a widespread, food borne illness crisis. But there’s an easy, cheap technological solution that could stop scares and outbreaks in their tracks.

A relatively simple system of QR codes — those funny-looking, two-dimensional barcodes you see everywhere today — could instantaneously link a product sold on store shelves back to the farm where it was grown or raised with a snap of a smartphone camera. It would no longer take days or weeks to determine what food is safe and what isn’t.

The system could even prevent the contaminated food from reaching store shelves in the first place.

IBM (, Fortune 500) has developed a technology called the InfoSphere Traceability Server, which assigns unique barcodes to every step of the food distribution chain.

The farms, slaughterhouses, food palates, shipping containers, trucks, grocery stores and individual products that are using InfoSphere are all affixed with QR codes and tracked. Even specific animals are being tagged and scanned, so you could find out which specific cow your milk came from or which pig became your pork.

Using this system, the orange juice crisis could have potentially been avoided. Rather than halting all shipments of orange juice to test for a fungicide and testing OJ at grocery stores, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has done, the juice could have been scanned and instantly linked back to a particular farm.

How RFID tags will change the future

"Someday soon, this will become the minimum requirement to participate in the food supply chain," said Paul Chang, IBM’s traceability program director.

But the system has yet to be widely adopted. There are some high hurdles to mass-adoption, most notably that for the system to work, every actor in the supply chain has to participate. And participation requires some level of investment in order to feed data into the network and extract results.

IBM already has a small handful of large retailers in the United States and Europe on its system, including Germany’s Metro Group, the third-largest food retailer in the world. But IBM believes it has found a way to get even the smallest mom & pop shops and farms on board as well.

IBM developed the InfoSphere system as a cloud-based service, meaning the only infrastructure needed to operate it is an Internet connection and a smartphone.

Though IBM’s Chang wouldn’t get specific about pricing, he said the costs are "minimal," pointing to the fact that that there are already small, rural farms in Thailand using the system no fax needed payday loans.

"We’ve developed the technology in such a way that it’s just a nominal cost to share and access information," Chang said. "We’re at an inflection point where this could be deployed more broadly."

But even if the majority of vendors, farms, shipping companies and grocery stores adopt it, it would really take everyone to join in to link your OJ to a particular farm.

To make such a global food traceability network a possibility, the food industry has developed an open standard for data recording and tracking. That means customers using IBM rivals’ systems could communicate with the InfoSphere server so a farm, a supplier and a grocery store all doing business with one another would not necessary need to be using the same system.

IBM says a very small percentage of companies in the food industry have adopted the technology so far. But with recalls happening on a weekly basis, and costs of technology falling, some regulators are becoming tempted to impose requirements that companies adopt traceability systems. IBM said is currently working with a small number of government regulators from around the world.

If widespread adoption does occur, it may help stop outbreaks before they start.

Today, testing products for contamination is a difficult and ineffective process. Food companies can’t test every batch, so choosing which ones to test is essentially random.

For instance, Coca-Cola (, Fortune 500) tested its batch of orange juice and found that the fungicide was present. But it also noticed that competitors’ juice was contaminated as well and had gone unnoticed.

Using advanced analytics, companies could know exactly which batches to test. As an example, a sensor in a shipping container of tomatoes that is several degrees warmer than normal could tip off the company to check the product that was shipped on that vessel. With QR tags, testers could know which palates were on that container and test them before they reach store shelves.

The technology is cheap and easy to implement. But until everyone adopts it, contaminated food outbreaks will continue. 

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Retail sales rose at the weakest pace in seven months in December as consumers pulled back late in the holiday shopping season, cutting purchases at department stores and spending less on electronic gadgets.

Total retail sales increased 0.1 percent after rising by an upwardly revised 0.4 percent in November, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales climbing 0.3 percent last month.

The upward revision for November sales suggests consumers likely frontloaded their holiday shopping. The government had initially estimated retail sales gained 0.2 percent in November.

Spending at electronics and appliance stores fell 3.9 percent in December, while shopping at department stores slipped 0.2 percent.

Fueling the overall increase in retail sales during December, receipts for motor vehicles and parts increased 1 Internet Payday loans.5 percent, adding to the prior month’s 0.9 percent gain.

Excluding autos, retail sales fell 0.2 percent, the first decline since May 2010.

Sales at food and beverage stores fell 0.2 percent in December. Also holding back the overall gain in sales, receipts at gasoline stations dropped 1.6 percent last month after rising 0.9 percent in November.

Core retail sales, which exclude autos, gasoline and building materials, dropped 0.1 percent in December after advancing 0.3 percent the prior month.

Core sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of the government’s gross domestic product report.

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Nintendo Co.’s upcoming Wii U game console will come with a controller that has a big, touch-enabled screen. At first glance, that seems like an obstacle to the kind of casual multiplayer gaming that made the first Wii console such a breakout hit.

But in demonstrations Tuesday, the company emphasized that the Wii U will work with the cheaper, stick-like Wii controllers as well, making family multiplayer games feasible.

The Japanese company is giving some journalists hands-on time with the console on the sidelines of the International Consumer Electronics Show, which started Tuesday in Las Vegas.

It’s the second time the U.S. media is getting a glimpse of the device, which was first shown in June. Nintendo said the device will go on sale after the next Electronic Entertainment Expo gaming trade show in Los Angeles in June.

Nintendo went against conventional wisdom with the original Wii in 2006. The quirky, cheap game console relied not on high-end graphics and complex buttons to lure in hardcore players, but on simple motion controls to lure in everyone.

Although the company successfully courted casual gamers with the Wii, it is now facing increased competition from Apple Inc.’s iPhone and other devices that offer simple games. It had hoped to win new gamers through a 3-D handheld device. But sales were slow, and Nintendo slashed prices on the 3DS within six months.

The Wii U will be sold as a bundle with one touch-screen controller, which is almost as big as the game console itself. Nintendo hasn’t said what the package or an extra controller will cost. Touch screens are expensive, often accounting for nearly half of the cost of a phone or a tablet computer.

Nintendo’s demonstrations reveal that the touch-screen controller is designed to work with older controllers free credit report and score. For example, in one of Nintendo’s demonstration games, four players with Wii remotes chase a fifth, who uses the touch controller. The fifth player uses the screen on the controller to guide his movements, which are thus kept secret from the other players. The other players keep track of their own movements on the TV screen.

In another demonstration game, two players with Wii remotes collaborate to fight a third, who zooms around in a spaceship, controlled through the touch controller.

The integration of the older remotes and the touch controller goes even further. The existing Wii console is able to keep track of where the old-style Wii remotes are with the help of a “sensor bar” that attaches to the TV set. That’s how the Wii remote can be used to “point” to things on the screen. The new Wii U controller has its own sensor bar, so the Wii U can figure out where a Wii remote is in relation to the controller, not just the TV set.

This sounds complicated, but it enables simple, unexpected forms of game play. For instance, Nintendo showed in a video how the Wii U controller could be placed on the floor for a golf game. The screen of the controller shows a teed-up golf ball. Swinging a Wii remote like a golf club above the controller gets the ball flying.

While the ability to use older remotes will appeal to consumers, supporting multiple remotes could pose a challenge for game developers, who might decide to drop support for older hardware. To make things more complicated, there are two versions of the Wii remote, with differing motion-sensing abilities, and an accessory “Nunchuck” controller.

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WASHINGTON • If timing is everything, as the saying goes, then Matt Blunt might consider a job giving advice on when to make career changes.

Blunt picked 2004 as the year to run for governor of Missouri. It turned into a strong year for Republicans and, at age 33, he became America’s youngest governor.

In his new incarnation, Blunt last year became chief spokesman and a lobbyist in Washington for Detroit’s Big Three automakers just as the American automotive industry was enjoying a resurgence.

It is one of several positions Blunt holds these days that enable him to prove life after Missouri’s Governor’s Mansion can be rewarding and, he says, enjoyable.

As president of the American Automotive Policy Council, one of Blunt’s main tasks is reminding Congress of his industry’s recent success, a rare good news story about American manufacturing.

Two years after General Motors and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy, both companies, along with Ford, reported profits and increasing sales in 2011. Their turnaround is hailed in reports such as a recent Time magazine cover story titled, “How America Started Selling Cars Again.”

Yet many Americans — some of them in Congress — see the automotive industry as bloated and inefficient, surviving on government bailouts.

“What some people believe about automobile manufacturers, the American-based companies, isn’t accurate,” Blunt said. “The companies today are fundamentally different than they were just a few years ago, in terms of what they make and how they make it.”

Blunt’s portfolio these days includes the vital matters affecting American carmakers, including global trade agreements, new fuel economy standards and a recent recommendation to ban texting and cellphone use in automobiles.

Blunt, who turned 41 in November, is leading a life different from his sometimes rocky four years as a young governor, in which he endured criticism for his cuts to Medicaid and low approval ratings at times.

After leaving office in January 2009, he moved swiftly into the world of business. Besides his Big Three job, he is a director for Copart Inc., an online auto auction company in California that claims to sell 1 million vehicles yearly. He is a senior adviser for Rubicon Global, an Atlanta-based waste management firm, and an advisory board member for private equity funds.

Rather than living in Jefferson City or Springfield, Blunt, his wife, Melanie, and sons Branch, 6, and Brooks, who turned 2 on New Year’s Day, reside now in Middleburg, Va., situated in rolling horse country that has been home to such notables as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor.

Blunt says he is comfortable in a part of the country where he has spent considerable time. He graduated from the Naval Academy in nearby Annapolis, Md., and he was stationed on a Virginia-based ship. His wife is a Virginia native.

In recent interviews, Blunt, whose father, Roy, just completed his first year in the U.S. Senate, said he has no regrets in deciding not to seek a second term.

“I loved being governor. It was a great experience. I was proud of what we accomplished,” he said. “But I don’t know that over another four-year term, I would have been particularly effective. I don’t know there’s much that I would have gotten done.”

He added, “I don’t necessarily miss politics.”

understanding autos

Blunt is dealing now with politics of a different order, in some cases global. He was outspoken last fall in pressing to keep Japan out of the budding Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade alliance, noting Japan’s protectionist policies that keep out all but a few thousand American cars yearly.

Trade is a key focus for Blunt but just one of many focuses for an industry that experts say needs help.

Joe Wiesenfelder, executive editor of Chicago-based Cars.com, said he sees “a gross misunderstanding in Washington about developing and building cars and how long it takes, about the inconsistency of the market and about inconsistency of regulation and the effects on companies.”

Until two years ago, Ford, Chrysler and GM were aligned in Washington with the Auto Alliance, which also includes foreign automakers. But the interests of domestic and foreign companies diverged just as legislation and government rules were becoming more consequential.

Blunt’s background as a governor likely played a role in his selection as the industry sought to navigate tricky political waters in Congress after the controversial bailouts No teletrak payday loan.

Blunt technically is not a registered federal lobbyist because he spends less than 20 percent of his time lobbying. Nevertheless, he works the halls of Congress, trumpeting the key role of the Big Three in the nation’s economy. GM, Ford and Chrysler will add 34,000 jobs in coming years, he said, which translates to 400,000 jobs in the economy supported by automotive plants.

“The American companies are competitive, they are productive and they are making great products,” Blunt said, sounding like the car salesman he has become. “Because of that, what recovery we do have in the American economy, the automobile makers are playing a big part.”

As a self-described conservative Republican, Blunt might find old allies who decry the $80 billion bailout of Chrysler and GM. Most of the money has been paid back, and the White House projected the cost to taxpayers at $14 billion.

“Decisions that President Bush made at the end of his administration and President Obama made early in his administration have had a successful outcome,” he said. “It’s always an academic debate whether a different road map would have led to the success.”

As governor, Blunt was an advocate of smaller government. Those sensibilities could come into play as government moves more aggressively to dictate vehicle design.

After an agreement with both domestic and foreign manufacturers, the administration of President Barack Obama in November proposed nearly doubling fuel economy requirements to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. In 2010, the administration completed rules to raise the fuel standard to 35.5 mpg by 2016. The current requirement for new autos is 27.3 mpg.

Foreign-based manufacturers believe the White House has tilted the rules in favor of the domestic industry. True or not, the Big Three will need to be vigilant as regulations are implemented; their focus will be on easing the burden those regulations could cause.

“It’s the classic ‘devil’s in the details,’ and it will be very important to see the rules filed by all the agencies,” Blunt said.

Texting debated

Automakers took notice recently when the National Transportation Safety Board said states should ban texting and cellphone use in vehicles. The board made the recommendation after concluding that a driver’s texting was a factor in a deadly pileup near St. Louis.

Blunt said companies he represents are paying close attention because “they really do believe that you can integrate technology into a vehicle that’s not only safe but safer than the way most drivers use technology today.”

“As you think about what you might or might not ban in a vehicle, it’s important to do it in a way that wouldn’t inhibit safety ideas some of the companies have today, and at the same time be realistic,” he said. “Quite frankly, I don’t think (a cellphone ban is) very realistic.”

As a lobbyist, Blunt seemingly could have a ready ear from father Roy, who won election this month to a Senate GOP leadership slot. Matt Blunt said he doesn’t intend to talk business at family gatherings, perhaps because Roy Blunt has in the past been criticized for ties to lobbyists in his family and otherwise.

Matt’s brother, Andy Blunt, works at a law firm in Jefferson City with a long list of lobbying clients. His sister, Amy, maintains some lobbying clients in her business in the state capital, which largely deals with helping candidates comply with Federal Election Commission rules. Roy Blunt’s wife, Abigail, was a lobbyist for tobacco giant Philip Morris before joining Kraft’s legislative affairs team.

Andy Blunt said his brother arrived in a position that suits his talents.

“He’s a great manager and executive and has the ability to focus on details while thinking about long-term strategy,” he said.

Blunt, who acknowledged driving a German-made automobile in the past, also is walking the talk now — driving it, actually.

He gets around Washington in a Chrysler-made Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Source

Richard Cordray

LONDON

Asian stock markets were mixed early Thursday, following flat trading on Wall Street as renewed worries over Europe’s banking system and a strong yen weighed on investor sentiment.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.5 percent to 8,514.03, while South Korea’s Kospi index gained 0.2 percent to 1,870.96. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.3 percent to 18,787.21. Australia’s S&P ASX 200 fell 1.2 percent at 4,139.70.

Benchmarks in Singapore and Taiwan were higher while those in Malaysia and New Zealand were lower.

In Tokyo, the yen’s rise against the euro elicited fears of more pain ahead for Japanese exporters. The euro sank to 98.71 yen on Monday in European trading, which Japan’s Kyodo News said was an 11-year low. The euro remained under selling pressure as it hovered around 99.72 yen Thursday.

On Wednesday, European markets declined after another increase in Italy’s borrowing costs renewed worries about the continent’s efforts to restore confidence in its debt-hobbled governments. Additionally, UniCredit _ Italy’s biggest bank _ said it would offer stock at a 69 percent discount to raise cash guaranteed unsecured personal loan. The size of the discount escalated worries about the state of Europe’s banking sector.

Stocks barely budged in the U.S. The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 0.2 percent to close at 12,418.42. The Dow opened the year Tuesday with a 180-point gain that brought it to its highest level since July.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index inched up less than 0.1 percent to close at 1,277.30. The Nasdaq fell marginally to 2,648.36.

Benchmark oil for February delivery fell 35 cents to $102.87 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 26 cents to end at $103.22 per barrel on the Nymex on Wednesday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2930 from $1.2938 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar slipped to 76.72 yen from 76.75 yen.

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Manufacturing in India and China improved in December, a sign the world

Treasuries (YCGT0025) had the biggest annual return since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008 as Europe