When the cheapest Kindle e-reader drops to $50, it's difficult to resist snagging one on an impulse buy. Appealing to our most reptilian consumer instincts is just how Amazon rolls, and--right on schedule--the retail behemoth-cum-hardware manufacturer is dropping prices across its product lines. Here are all the Black Friday deals for the Amazon Echo, Kindle, and Fire tablet lines. We're also including links to our own coverage of the price-dropped devices (many of which are best in their categories, the Amazon pedigree notwithstanding). Amazon says these deals will end at the stroke of midnight on Monday, Nov. 27.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is rolling out shelf-scanning robots in more than 50 U.S. stores to replenish inventory faster and save employees time when products run out. The approximately 2-foot (0.61-meter) robots come with a tower that is fitted with cameras that scan aisles to check stock and identify missing and misplaced items, incorrect prices and mislabeling. The robots pass that data to store employees, who then stock the shelves and fix errors. Out-of-stock items are a big problem for retailers since they miss out on sales every time a shopper cannot find a product on store shelves. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer has been testing shelf-scanning robots in a handful of stores in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and California.

Walmart has been testing autonomous floor-cleaning robots in five of its stores, LinkedIn reports. The floor scrubber, developed by Brain Corp., is equipped with cameras, sensors and LiDAR to help it maneuver down aisles and around obstacles. And it can largely navigate itself after first being driven by a person in order to learn its path. Phil Duffy, VP of innovation and marketing for Brain Corp., told Fox Business that the company's technology is in approximately 50 malls and retailers nationwide. "We are also in airports, educational campuses, corporate campuses and industrial sites. In addition, we will be launching in Japan, through our partner, SoftBank Robotics, by summer 2018," he said.

Friday marks one of the best days of the year to score a deal on any of those gadgets you've been to buy. Everything from clothes to kitchen appliances will be on sale for the day after Thanksgiving sale. If you're hoping to get a Google product, you shouldn't have to look very hard to find it at the right price. Everything from the Google Pixel 2 to the Google Chromebooks will be on sale for the pre-holiday shopping day. Google home products will be one of the many on sale for Black Friday.

Bagging discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday has become a yearly ritual for many of us. The roots go back to the early 20th century – a folk belief is that it is the day retailers go "into the black" after running at a loss for the year. In reality the term was first connected with the day after Thanksgiving as a comment on the nightmarish congestion generated by the crowds in Philadelphia. In the 1980s sports games gave way to shopping as the public's favourite post-Thanksgiving pastime. Cyber Monday arose in the mid-noughties when marketers realized that workers returning to the office following Thanksgiving breaks were making use of high-speed internet connections to shop online bargains.

Meet Fingerlings, the adorable robot monkeys poised to be the holiday season's hottest toy. This Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, photo provided by Amy B. Stepp shows a fake Fingerling that she received after paying $17 on Amazon for what she thought was a real Fingerlings monkey. Shoppers rushing to buy Fingerlings, one of this holiday season's already hard-to-find toys, say that they are being fooled into buying fakes through Amazon and Walmart.com. NEW YORK -- Shoppers rushing to find Fingerlings, the robotic monkeys that are a hot toy this holiday season, say they've been fooled into buying fakes through outside sellers on Amazon and Walmart.com. The real Fingerlings, 6-inch multicolored monkeys, wrap around a finger, move, and make sounds.

Correlation matrices are omnipresent in multivariate data analysis. When the number $d$ of variables is large, the sample estimates of correlation matrices are typically noisy and conceal underlying dependence patterns. We consider the case when the variables can be grouped into $K$ clusters with exchangeable dependence; an assumption often made in applications in finance and econometrics. Under this partial exchangeability condition, the corresponding correlation matrix has a block structure and the number of unknown parameters is reduced from $d(d-1)/2$ to at most $K(K+1)/2$. We propose a robust algorithm based on Kendall's rank correlation to identify the clusters without assuming the knowledge of $K$ a priori or anything about the margins except continuity. The corresponding block-structured estimator performs considerably better than the sample Kendall rank correlation matrix when $K < d$. Even in the unstructured case $K = d$, though there is no gain asymptotically, the new estimator can be much more efficient in finite samples. When the data are elliptical, the results extend to linear correlation matrices and their inverses. The procedure is illustrated on financial stock returns.

Natural language processing became another buzzword these years. But not everyone really understands what NLP is and how it can be used to improve efficiency of the process and impact your business in a positive way. Let's start with basics, natural language processing (NLP) is the ability of a computer program to understand human speech as it is spoken. It is a component of artificial intelligence (AI) – actually another big trend these years. In other words, Natural language processing is a field of computer science, artificial intelligence, and computational linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages. It is a computer activity in which computers analyze, understand and generate natural language.

The holidays are upon us, which means toys are popping up everywhere. There are Hatchimals and Shopkins, Fingerlings and Oonies, and of course updates on classics like Legos and Nintendo. The most popular of the bunch have already begun selling out online and in stores. Shoppers are projected to spend an average of $967.13 this holiday season, a 3.4 percent increase from last year, with the bulk of that money going toward gifts for family members, according to the National Retail Federation. Spending on toys is also on the rise, with roughly 40 percent of adults saying they plan to buy toys this year, up from 29 percent five years ago, according to data from Deloitte.

When you go to Fashion Week, the talk is all about what's trending in colors, cuts, hemlines and finishes. When you go to retail seminars, it's about data and how artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and even augmented reality (AR) are moving the needle in transforming the customer experience and the future of the commerce. While these tech-oriented terms might not have the headline appeal of Philipp Plein's cabaret runway show, they are defining the future of retail. Lori Mitchell-Keller, global general manager of consumer industries for software solutions firm SAP, says AI and AR will help retailers provide not only a seamless shopping experience, but convenience in today's fast-paced economy. "With personalized recommendations, consumers get the best of both worlds," Mitchell-Keller says. "Consumers continue to respond well to targeted recommendations through email, text and push notifications, and, according to Accenture, 65 percent are more likely to shop at a retailer that knows their purchase history and offers relevant recommendations."