Image classification and object detection in images are hot topics these days, thanks to a combination of improvements in algorithms, datasets, frameworks, and hardware. These improvements democratized the technology and gave us the ingredients for creating our own solution for image classification. The state-of-the-art technologies for image classification and object detection are based on deep learning (DL). DL is a subarea of machine learning (ML) that is focused on algorithms for handling neural networks (NN) with many layers, or deep neural networks. ML, in turn, is a subarea of artificial intelligence (AI), a computer-science discipline.

Fashion is a glamorous business. British fashion house Burberry recently sparked a massive outcry after burning £28 million of excess stock (as listed in its annual report), continuing a "brand protection" practice associated with other fashion labels like Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Far from protecting Burberry's brand, this backlash could not have come at a worse time for the label. The industry is already under intense scrutiny for years of unethical practices. In addition, fashion houses have to contend with changing tastes and shopping habits.

Israeli computer vision startup, Trigo Vision, has won $7 million in a seed funding round by UK-Israel based Hetz Ventures and Vertex Ventures Israel. Trigo Vision's vision platform is designed for the retail market. It combines a network of ceiling-based cameras with machine vision algorithms to identify customers' shopping items, similar in principle to the Amazon Go store in Seattle, which doesn't have a checkout because it can track what customers put in their shopping basket. The funding will be used to grow the company's core R&D team and build new applications for its technology. 'The founding team has managed to assemble a world-class R&D team to tackle an enormous user experience problem in retail,' commented Yanai Oron, general partner at Vertex Ventures.

At Microsoft's Inspire partner conference last week, Walmart announced that they are partnering with Microsoft to use their cloud service offerings to improve Walmart's forecasting, purchasing, and data-sharing abilities. Walmart, the world's largest retailer, has agreed to a five-year term with Microsoft to use their cloud technology and artificial intelligence to optimize its workflows by integrating its data more deeply into Azure. The company hopes that new AI and machine learning algorithms will make it easier to streamline deliveries and cut costs as it continues to expand its online offerings. Those now include grocery pickup, smart home tech installation, and more, in addition to traditional online purchases. Microsoft is reportedly also working on a technology that could be used to power check-out free retail stores which is a perfect fit for Walmart shoppers.

Machine learning is a revolutionary technology that currently forms a critical aspect of numerous burgeoning and established industries. This technology allows computers to access hidden insights and predict outcomes, leading to remarkable changes to businesses. Wei Lei, who is the Vice President and General Manager at Intel, says that "machine learning is becoming more sophisticated with every passing year. And, we are yet to see its full potential--beyond self-driving cars, fraud detection devices, or retail trends analyses." How will it impact our world in the future?

Something as simple as being welcomed to a shop with a "Good morning, how can I help you?" could soon be a thing of the past, or, at least, not hearing it from a person but a robot that customises the interaction according to the data the establishment has on the customer. Even now, both the role played by the shop assistant and the management of online information and purchases are fundamental. "Retailers are working to provide a seamless experience for customers, between online and offline shopping. We are now seeing customers browse online and pick up in the store; or visit a physical store to touch and feel the product and then purchase it online," explains Barbara Kahn, professor of marketing at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Building a strong brand that the consumer can identify with and a supportive brand experience is one of the approaches retailers are taking to adapt to these changes.

Companies are waging an invisible data war online. And your phone might be an unwitting soldier. Retailers from Amazon and Walmart to tiny startups want to know what their competitors charge. Brick and mortar retailers can send people, sometimes called "mystery shoppers," to their competitors' stores to make notes on prices. Online, there's no need to send people anywhere.

How many of you think that e-commerce is come of age? A friend of mine was telling me how she finds browsing through 80,000 dresses online to find that one perfect dress for a date the most tedious thing to do. And rather prefers to go to one store with 20 limited and options and pick one dress that is the best from among them. The dilemma of choosing from thousands, lakhs and crores of products to find that one particular things has put online shopping at the risk of saturation. In this world of fast entry and exit, continuous updating of technology is a must in any sphere and for e-commerce the ship will soon sink if it doesn't change its current strategy and include disruptive technology as a part of its growth plan.

If we learned anything from 2017 it's that no industry is immune to a downturn. However, "downturn" might be putting what happened in the retail market in 2017 lightly. According to a Credit Suisse report, when 2017 came to a close, approximately 6,800 stores will have shut permanently, setting a new, ominous record. While there may be a strong correlation between the rise of ecommerce giants such as Amazon and Walmart and this downturn, the reality is a little more complicated. All of the above are compounded by the fact that ecommerce teams have to deliver an Omni-channel experience without negatively impacting sales margins.

Amazon is every online retailer's forbidding nightmare. Last year, it dominated 44 percent of the US eCommerce market and about 4 percent of all domestic retail sales. One Click Retail, an eCommerce analysis provider, explains its dominance with the fact that millennials, Amazon's core demographic, are getting older and starting to spend more. Moreover, advanced marketing capabilities for sellers, developments in Alexa, and pioneering in applications of the hottest technologies make it impossibly hard for smaller competitors to actually… well, compete. Amazon is not only a simple and familiar platform selling everything you can think of – it's also one of the most innovative players on the market.