Ecommerce is a complex, convoluted thing. What started as a way of putting catalogues online has now become something much more involved. In the past we built ecommerce engines out of databases, with a little shopping cart magic wrapped around them. We generated static content for Google to search, and redirected users to our dynamic sites as soon as they clicked on a link. Manual curation was the watchword, much like the paper catalogues the web had replaced.

The digital economy has transformed the way we communicate with each other; the way we consume information, products, and services; the way we entertain ourselves. It's revolutionized seemingly non-digital industries--think of how different financial services, for instance, are today from what they were two decades ago--and investors expect it to soon transform others, which is why Tesla Motors is worth more than General Motors despite making a tiny fraction as many cars as GM makes and earning a tiny fraction of the revenue. This phenomenon explains why the so-called Big Five of the digital economy--Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook--have, at various points over the last year, been the five most valuable companies in the world. So you might say that the digital economy has lived up to the expectations people had for it 20 years ago, in the early days of the Web. In other important ways, however, its consequences have been smaller than you might think.

The price tag still holds sway in our major shops and departments stores -- but the retail sector is moving away from fixed prices, and online businesses are leading the way. Prices already fluctuate online for certain products and services like airline fares, hotel rooms and ride-sharing services like Uber. One day you score a great deal, the next you end up paying a bit more than you wanted. Most people focus on the positive -- the bargain they got. But what if such flexibility and uncertainty was a feature of all your shopping? Until now, those variations have been dictated by the laws of supply and demand: a price surge algorithm detects a spike in demand and ups the charge -- following the fundamental logic of the market.

In a recent report, the National Retail Federation projected online sales in 2017 will grow three times faster than in-store sales. The report suggests 51% of Americans prefer to shop online rather than in stores--a figure that jumps to 67% for millennials and 56% for Gen Xers. With Amazon accounting for 43% of online sales in the US, only store sales will be disrupted more in the coming months. Additionally, eCommerce sales are also expected to reach $4 trillion by 2020 – making it 14.6% of total retail spending that year. So what does this mean for retailers?

Inc.'s $13.7 billion bid to buy Whole Foods was announced, John Mackey, the grocer's chief executive officer, addressed employees, gushing about Amazon's technological innovation. "We will be joining a company that's visionary," Mackey said, according to a transcript of the meeting. "I think we're gonna get a lot of those innovations in our stores. I think we're gonna see a lot of technology. I think you're gonna see Whole Foods Market evolve in leaps and bounds."

Ecommerce is a complex, convoluted thing. What started as a way of putting catalogues online has now become something much more involved. In the past we built ecommerce engines out of databases, with a little shopping cart magic wrapped around them. We generated static content for Google to search, and redirected users to our dynamic sites as soon as they clicked on a link. Manual curation was the watchword, much like the paper catalogues the web had replaced.

SAN FRANCISCO – When Amazon made a bid for Whole Foods earlier this month, a company that's been a huge but largely online presence for consumers suddenly seemed to be everywhere, raising the question, "Is it getting too big?" In most of the areas Amazon has recently entered, be they groceries or streaming video or India, Amazon is far from dominant. But some observers fear that as Amazon's breadth grows, the power of its ecosystem could stifle competition and erode jobs. "Imagine getting your pay-TV service, groceries, banking, insurance, etc. all through one company. That's the threat that Amazon poses," said Michael Greeson, director of research at business analysis firm The Diffusion Group.

Jane Chappell is the vice president of Raytheon's Global Intelligence Solution. You check your mailbox and there's a free subscription to a parenting magazine, a sample of baby formula and coupons for store-brand diapers, but you and your spouse just renewed your AARP membership. Obviously, something has gone wrong, and the algorithm used to process trends and habits to build a unique profile revealed its limitations. Perhaps you shopped for baby clothes for a new grandchild and the resulting consumer data told the retailer you were likely a parent-to-be rather than a retiree. Mailing samples of baby formula rather than coupons for wine-of-the-month club is expensive to both a store's reputation and bottom line.

With the reinvigoration of neural networks in the 2000s, deep learning has become an extremely active area of research that is paving the way for modern machine learning. This book uses exposition and examples to help you understand major concepts in this complicated field. Large companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have taken notice and are actively growing in-house deep learning teams. For the rest of us, deep learning is still a pretty complex and difficult subject to grasp. Research papers are filled to the brim with jargon, and scattered online tutorials do little to help build a strong intuition for why and how deep learning practitioners approach problems.

Amazon is increasingly claiming territory once held exclusively by department stores and it's doing so again, essentially placing a dressing room in your house. The retail giant is testing a new service for Prime members that allows them to try on the latest styles before they buy at no upfront charge. Customers have seven days to decide what they like and only pay for what they keep. Amazon announced Tuesday, June 20, 2017, that it's testing a new service for its Prime members that lets customers try on the latest styles before they buy at no upfront charge, take seven days to decide and only pay for what they keep Shoppers pick three or more items and then have a try-on period of seven-days to find the best styles. The items arrive in a re-sealable box with a pre-paid label for returns.