Noah Smith:  Every once in a while, you hear the old claim that Japan doesn’t create new things, but simply copies the West and makes small, iterative improvements. Most Americans no longer believe this canard and a recent Pew survey found that 75 percent of Americans think of Japanese people as “inventive.” But people still repeat the old saw from time to time, and it needs to die.

First of all, if anyone ever asks you “What did the Japanese ever invent?” you can quote them a long and impressive list. In the area of electronics, for example, Japanese inventors came up with the digital single-lens reflex camera, the floppy disk, flash memory, the VCR, the portable calculator, the Walkman, the laptop computer, the DVD and more.

Now, defenders of the old stereotype will be quick to point out that many of these inventions used technologies that were invented in other countries — for example, the charge-coupled devices that make digital photography possible were pioneered in the U.S. But if you look at the history of innovation, you see that almost all innovation stands on the shoulders of giants.  The Japanese team that came up with blue LEDs, which enable energy-efficient lighting, was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics. Pluripotent stem cells, which allow the creation of stem cells without the destruction of human embryos, were invented by Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, who received the 2012 Nobel in chemistry.

And in 1804, before the end of feudal times, a Japanese surgeon was the first to use general anesthesia.

In the fields of entertainment and culture, Japan is also a pioneer. Many of our modern video-game genres come from Japanese games.

That should take care of debunking the stereotype. But it’s also true that there are at least two important ways in which Japan could bolster its inventive and innovative prowess.

The first is to improve its universities. Japan’s top-ranked university, the University of Tokyo, is only No. 23 on the worldwide list, while U.S. universities dominate.

The second thing Japan could do — but which many of its citizens will be reluctant to countenance — is to create a well-funded equivalent of the U.S.’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.  DARPA has been responsible for a long list of transformative inventions and innovations, the Internet itself not least among them.

So Japan, which has always been a very creative, innovative country, is doing what it needs to do in order to maintain its inventive edge. Is the U.S. doing the same? It should be.

Elon Musk unveiled a new home-based battery that can store electricity and serve as a backup generator.

Cars used to be the ultimate symbols of freedom. A century ago Henry Ford’s Model T liberated millions of people from drudgery and slower modes of transport.

Since its arrival on the scene, Tesla has offered its well-heeled customers a different type of freedom, one that is gaining more currency as awareness of climate change and the ill effects of fossil fuels rise. That is the freedom from gas stations, from gasoline and oil, from gas taxes, from emissions.

Tesla’s new battery could finally sever the chain between transport and fossil fuels.  Energy storage is stationary. And a giant, expensive battery pack installed in your home doesn’t really enhance mobility. But it does contribute to freedom in two ways. First, it enables more people to liberate themselves from the electrical grid and fossil fuels at home. Second, it offers the potential to finally sever the chain between transport and fossil fuels.

Having an independent power source at home has become a bigger issue for people all over the country in recent years, as storms and floods tend to make electricity unavailable for longer periods of time.

A loud, fossil fuel-burning generator is comforting. But it would be more efficient—and more pleasing, and more green, and more quiet—to have a powerful battery in the basement that could kick in at times of need. Solar power is famously intermittent, which is a fancy of way of noting that the sun doesn’t shine for a big chunk of the day.

Storage in conjunction with solar achieves two goals. First, excess power created during daylight hours, if not sold to the grid, can be used to charge the battery. The battery can be used in times of emergency. Or, in theory, it could be tapped at night, to pick up the smaller electric load of a sleeping household—thus further reducing the need for dependence on the grid.

James Waterworth writes: When the European Commission announces its new digital strategy on May 6, it will face a decisive choice between two very different approaches to the Internet. Will it choose a forward-looking, market-driven path? Or will it opt for a defensive, backward-looking, insular retreat?

First the good news: the high profile of the planned announcement shows that the continent’s leaders recognize that the Internet can no longer be shunted to the sidelines of European policymaking. It is central to economic performance and to modernizing Europe’s industrial base.

Over the past five years, while Europe has grappled with its macroeconomic woes, the United States and Asia have raced ahead, reaping digital benefits. According to a recent study by Plum Consulting, information and communications technology (ICT) contributed nearly 1.6% to annual productivity growth in the US during this period – double its contribution in Europe. Perhaps that should come as no surprise, given that nearly 5% of US investment is spent on ICT, compared to 2% in Europe.

The question facing European policymakers is how to close this gap. The best way forward would be to embrace the Internet, even where it is disruptive. In practice, this means cutting red tape so that all businesses can sell their goods and services across a common market of 500 million people. European companies today must navigate 28 sets of rules. It is little wonder that only 15% of consumers shop online across European borders.

Europe’s focus should be on removing barriers and updating regulation to encourage more, not less, use of the Internet. This will require having the courage to face down those who would retreat behind national borders and protect existing business models. .

European policymakers should also guarantee non-discriminatory wholesale access to communications networks, and that consumers and businesses have a range of choices for telecommunications and online services.

Unfortunately, ominous signs are pointing in the wrong direction. Europe’s two heavyweights, France and Germany, have been vocal in their determination to roll back digital progress. Recently, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Günther Oettinger referred to the concept of net neutrality as “Taliban-like” and called for a new levy on online services.

German and French pressure has led to calls for beefed-up regulatory powers to rein in powerful, usually American platforms, such as Google and Facebook.

All of these moves add up to an alarming and wrongheaded approach to the Internet. If Europe continues on this path, it risks missing out on the potential of the online economy. After all, it is European small businesses, not just American, that benefit from e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon and the advertising services of Google and Facebook. And European app developers, too, build businesses on mobile phone software.

The Internet is not a game of winners or losers; everyone can win. Nor does it pit Europe against other regions. After all, Europe has almost as many billion-euro Internet firms as the US. The wisest choice for Europe would be to ensure that many more successful Internet firms emerge, by creating the best possible conditions for digital innovators.

Apple once again beat Wall Street’s forecasts for revenues, earnings and iPhone sales with its results for the second quarter, as it said it would return another $70 billion to shareholders.  The world’s most valuable company by market capitalisation posted revenue growth of 27% to $58 billion, ahead of analysts’ expectations of around $56 billion, thanks to stronger-than-anticipated iPhone sales, up 40% to 61.2 million units. Apple said that it would expand its dividends and buyback scheme to return a total of $200 billion to shareholders by the end of March 2017, up from the $130 billionn programme of a year ago. That includes a 11% dividend increase and a further $50 billion in share repurchases. 

Apple is an interesting lesson for entrepreneurs.  Give the market what they don’t know they want but discover that they do.  Is the watch going to work?

Hawaii is at the forefront of a global upheaval in the power business. Rooftop systems now sit atop roughly 12 percent of Hawaii’s homes, according to the federal Energy Information Administration, by far the highest proportion in the nation.

Other states and countries, including California, Arizona, Japan and Germany, are struggling to adapt to the growing popularity of making electricity at home, which puts new pressures on old infrastructure like circuits and power lines and cuts into electric company revenue.

As a result, many utilities are trying desperately to stem the rise of solar, either by reducing incentives, adding steep fees or effectively pushing home solar companies out of the market. In response, those solar companies are fighting back through regulators, lawmakers and the courts.

The shift in the electric business is no less profound than those that upended the telecommunications and cable industries in recent decades. It is already remaking the relationship between power companies and the public while raising questions about how to pay for maintaining and operating the nation’s grid.

In solar-rich areas of California and Arizona, as well as in Hawaii, all that solar-generated electricity flowing out of houses and into a power grid designed to carry it in the other direction has caused unanticipated voltage fluctuations that can overload circuits, burn lines and lead to brownouts or blackouts.

The economic threat also has electric companies on edge. Over all, demand for electricity is softening while home solar is rapidly spreading across the country. There are now about 600,000 installed systems, and the number is expected to reach 3.3 million by 2020, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The Edison Electric Institute, the main utility trade group, has been warning its members of the economic perils of high levels of rooftop solar since at least 2012.

In Hawaii, the current battle began in 2013, when Hawaiian Electric started barring installations of residential solar systems in certain areas.  The utility wants to cut roughly in half the amount it pays customers for solar electricity they send back to the grid. But after a study showed that with some upgrades the system could handle much more solar than the company had assumed, the state’s public utilities commission ordered the utility to begin installations or prove why it could not.

It was but one sign of the agency’s growing impatience with what it considers the utility’s failure to adapt its business model to the changing market.

Hawaiian Electric is scrambling to accede to that demand, approving thousands of applications in recent weeks. But it is under pressure on other fronts as well. NextEra Energy, based in Florida, is awaiting approval to buy it, while other islands it serves are exploring defecting to form their own cooperative power companies.

It is also upgrading its circuits and meters to better regulate the flow of electricity. Rooftop solar makes far more power than any other single source, said Colton Ching, vice president for energy delivery at Hawaiian Electric, but the utility can neither control nor predict the output.

For customers, such explanations offer little comfort as they continue to pay among the highest electric rates in the country and still face an uncertain solar future.

Installers — who saw their fast-growing businesses slow to a trickle — are also frustrated with the pace. For those who can afford it, said James Whitcomb, chief executive of Haleakala Solar, which he started in 1977, the answer may lie in a more radical solution: Avoid the utility and its grid altogether.

Customers are increasingly asking about the batteries that he often puts in along with the solar panels, allowing them to store the power they generate during the day for use at night. It is more expensive, but it breaks consumer reliance on the utility’s network of power lines.