The company, which focuses mainly on processing steel for use in the enterprise, saw its stock move up nearly 4% after hours.

FORBES: After Hours: Verifone Offers Bid For Competitor

This, Dr Levoy explains, is mainly down to the processing power of devices, such as camera-equipped smartphones, growing faster than the capacity of sensors which record light data.

ECONOMIST: Monitor

Maine sends much of its lobster to Canada for processing each year, mainly due to its small number of plants.

CNN: Canadian lobstermen reach deal in pricing dispute

Database software mainly consists of two segments: online transaction processing and data warehousing.

FORBES: Oracle Can Milk Exadata Servers And Software For Spurt Above $40

In practice, they provide cheap labour (mainly from Asia) for the garment industry, farming and fish-processing.

ECONOMIST: Japanese immigration

Outsourcing, which once meant mainly the simple offloading of such auxiliary activities as groundskeeping, the corporate canteen or the data processing center, is very different today.

FORBES: Ghost cars, ghost brands