Retail
ARIMA_PLUS: Large-scale, Accurate, Automatic and Interpretable In-Database Time Series Forecasting and Anomaly Detection in Google BigQuery
Cheng, Xi, Shen, Weijie, Chen, Haoming, Shen, Chaoyi, Ortega, Jean, Liu, Jiashang, Thomas, Steve, Zheng, Honglin, Wu, Haoyun, Li, Yuxiang, Lichtendahl, Casey, Ortiz, Jenny, Liu, Gang, Qi, Haiyang, Fatemieh, Omid, Fry, Chris, Long, Jing Jing
Time series forecasting and anomaly detection are common tasks for practitioners in industries such as retail, manufacturing, advertising and energy. Two unique challenges stand out: (1) efficiently and accurately forecasting time series or detecting anomalies in large volumes automatically; and (2) ensuring interpretability of results to effectively incorporate business insights. We present ARIMA_PLUS, a novel framework to overcome these two challenges by a unique combination of (a) accurate and interpretable time series models and (b) scalable and fully managed system infrastructure. The model has a sequential and modular structure to handle different components of the time series, including holiday effects, seasonality, trend, and anomalies, which enables high interpretability of the results. Novel enhancements are made to each module, and a unified framework is established to address both forecasting and anomaly detection tasks simultaneously. In terms of accuracy, its comprehensive benchmark on the 42 public datasets in the Monash forecasting repository shows superior performance over not only well-established statistical alternatives (such as ETS, ARIMA, TBATS, Prophet) but also newer neural network models (such as DeepAR, N-BEATS, PatchTST, TimeMixer). In terms of infrastructure, it is directly built into the query engine of BigQuery in Google Cloud. It uses a simple SQL interface and automates tedious technicalities such as data cleaning and model selection. It automatically scales with managed cloud computational and storage resources, making it possible to forecast 100 million time series using only 1.5 hours with a throughput of more than 18000 time series per second. In terms of interpretability, we present several case studies to demonstrate time series insights it generates and customizability it offers.
Dreo space heaters are on sale at Amazon just in time for the cold weather to roll in
If your feet are chilly or your nose feels dry, you're going to want to jump on these limited-time Amazon deals on Dreo heaters and humidifiers. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. This is a weird time of year here in Upstate New York and much of the country. I wake up and it's freezing, but then I'm sweating through my hoodie by the time the afternoon rolls around. That's where a space heater comes in handy.
The All-Clad Pizza Oven Is 800 Off Right Now
The All-Clad pizza oven was one of my biggest surprises of the summer. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Cookware brand All-Clad surprised me this year. This summer, it breezed into the backyard pizza world with a debut pizza oven that I like as well as any oven I've tested this year.
Sennheiser's Awesome Wireless Earbuds Are Almost Half Off
These high-end earbuds sound great, and have a much-needed discount. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Amazon currently has the Black Graphite Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) marked down to just $180, a full $170 off their list price, with lesser discounts on the regular black and white varieties. If you've ever used a pair of Sennheiser headphones before, you know they have a consistently excellent sound quality, and the True Wireless 4 are no exception.
Google Nest Cam Indoor and Outdoor 2K Review: Slick, Smart, and Secure
The latest Nest cams jump to 2K resolution, but what really elevates them is Gemini's pricey AI subscription smarts. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Gemini can answer questions and offer descriptions. Overhauled Google Home app is much improved.
Gear News of the Week: There's Yet Another New AI Browser, and Fujifilm Debuts the X-T30 III
Plus: Aura's new digital photo frame goes wireless, a mood-morphing watch, Wyze and TP-Link unveil solar-powered outdoor security cameras, and Intel will open "AI Experience Stores" in five cities. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. What are the odds that AI browsers launch in one week? OpenAI announced Atlas on Wednesday, a ChatGPT-powered Chromium browser, but a tiny startup called Nimo also debuted Nimo Infinity, a canvas-style AI browser with a generative user interface.
How Long Do Vacuums Last? (2025)
How Long Do Vacuums Last? Here are the signs to look for, and how to help your vacuum live longer. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Be honest: how long have you been lugging around your current vacuum?
See, Think, Act: Online Shopper Behavior Simulation with VLM Agents
Zhang, Yimeng, Gesi, Jiri, Xue, Ran, Wang, Tian, Wang, Ziyi, Lu, Yuxuan, Zhan, Sinong, Zeng, Huimin, Cui, Qingjun, Guo, Yufan, Huang, Jing, Shah, Mubarak, Wang, Dakuo
LLMs have recently demonstrated strong potential in simulating online shopper behavior. Prior work has improved action prediction by applying SFT on action traces with LLM-generated rationales, and by leveraging RL to further enhance reasoning capabilities. Despite these advances, current approaches rely on text-based inputs and overlook the essential role of visual perception in shaping human decision-making during web GUI interactions. In this paper, we investigate the integration of visual information, specifically webpage screenshots, into behavior simulation via VLMs, leveraging OPeRA dataset. By grounding agent decision-making in both textual and visual modalities, we aim to narrow the gap between synthetic agents and real-world users, thereby enabling more cognitively aligned simulations of online shopping behavior. Specifically, we employ SFT for joint action prediction and rationale generation, conditioning on the full interaction context, which comprises action history, past HTML observations, and the current webpage screenshot. To further enhance reasoning capabilities, we integrate RL with a hierarchical reward structure, scaled by a difficulty-aware factor that prioritizes challenging decision points. Empirically, our studies show that incorporating visual grounding yields substantial gains: the combination of text and image inputs improves exact match accuracy by more than 6% over text-only inputs. These results indicate that multi-modal grounding not only boosts predictive accuracy but also enhances simulation fidelity in visually complex environments, which captures nuances of human attention and decision-making that text-only agents often miss. Finally, we revisit the design space of behavior simulation frameworks, identify key methodological limitations, and propose future research directions toward building efficient and effective human behavior simulators.
Temu agrees to remove rip-off greeting cards from its site more quickly
Online shopping giant Temu has agreed to work with the greeting card industry to remove copied designs from its site more quickly. Designers told the BBC the process for getting the plagiarised listings removed has been like the fairground game'whack-a-mole' with copied products re-appearing within days. Temu said protecting intellectual property was a top priority and that it was encouraging sellers to join the trial of a new takedown process specifically for the greetings card industry. Amanda Mountain, the co-founder of York-based Lola Design, discovered the catalogue of designs she had built up over a decade had nearly all been copied. She found the images she had created had been lifted and were being advertised by other sellers on cards and other products like t-shirts.
Essential Gear for an Emergency Kit--for Cars or Go-Bags
What Should Be in Your Emergency Kit Before Disaster Strikes? We consulted preparedness experts and WIRED's team of testers on the essential bug-out gear to keep your family safe during an unplanned exit. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. You never know when you're going to have to bug out on short notice.