With food-and-beverage outlets now among the fastest-growing categories in retail centers, a CBRE Group, Inc., report identifies four formats poised for significant expansion: food trucks, food halls, celebrity-chef restaurants and "grocerants."

As the world's biggest manufacturing power, China is well placed to lead the Internet of Things transition. Which is why this week GE, the world's biggest industrial company, opened what it calls a "digital foundry" in Shanghai. The centre will help Chinese companies develop and commercialise products for the industrial internet of things, which involves factory machines and industrial goods communicating with each other and their surroundings.