In the race to become humanity's real-life Iron Man, it appears Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has taken the lead from Tesla's Elon Musk. I just got to pilot an awesome (and huge) robot thanks to Hankook Mirae Technology. Caleb Harper, who works with The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Open Agriculture Initiative, shared video on Twitter of Bezos operating the robots' arms. "Why do I feel so much like Sigourney Weaver," said Bezos, a nod to the actress' role as Ripley in the sci-fi classic Alien. Bezos was attending the second annual MARS conference, which brings together experts in robotics, machine learning, home automation and space to demonstrate and discuss the latest innovations.

Research shows that a 5-star rating isn't actually the best, as if customers don't see at least a few negative reviews they think the system's been gamed. SAN FRANCISCO -- Chances are, a week or two after you buy something online you'll get an email asking, "How'd we do?" and a link to review the product. Your response and those of other customers are worth a lot: $400 billion, according to one analyst. The more buys, the more reviews. The more buys, the higher your rank in search and the more sales you get," said Alice Kim, owner of online cosmetic brand Elizabeth Mott. Even a single comment can make a huge difference. Just going from zero review to one increases the rate at which online window-shoppers actually click the "buy" button by 65%, said Matt Moog, CEO of Power Reviews, a company that makes ratings and review software. He estimates 20% of sales are driven by reviews and one-third of online shoppers say straight out they won't buy a product that hasn't been positively reviewed. Increasingly, online reviews matter for all buyers even though online sales made up just 8.3% of U.S. retail sales in the fourth quarter, according to the Department of Commerce -- and Amazon's reviews matter most of all. The online retailer lives and dies by its reviews online, said owner Alice Kim. Fifty-five percent of shoppers start their buying research on Amazon, a survey by marketing firm BloomReach found, and half of all shoppers say they rely primarily on Amazon for reviews, according to Market Track, an e-commerce analysis firm. "They can be in Best Buy or Home Depot, but they go on their phones to check Amazon reviews," said Greg Perry of One Click Retail, an e-commerce data company. Amazon's reviews rank so highly in part because they're considered the most trustworthy, even though -- like other sites -- it's not immune from people using the reviews for ancillary purposes, say last November's flood of one-star reviews of anchor Megyn Kelly's book hours after it went on sale, which the LA Times said was orchestrated by a pro-Trump forum on Reddit. The Seattle retailer has gone to great lengths to root out fake reviews, launching over 1,000 lawsuits against those who post them, according to the company. It also marks and gives more weight to reviews by people who actually bought the product and has introduced a machine learning algorithm that gives more weight to newer, more helpful reviews. In October Amazon began requiring that any review of a product given to the reviewer for free or at reduced cost be marked as such. "Our focus is to make sure our reviews are authentic and helpful," said spokeswoman Angie Newman. Whether consumers realize it or not, the notes they hastily type out, whether glowing or scathing, wield tremendous power. "Before, you might have told ten people about a product.

I guess this isn't the best book for newbies. I picked this up because I would like to incorporate AI/Machine Learning into my Thesis. My school does not offer Artificial Intelligence on a semester nor yearly basis (it's on rotation, which means I won't be able to take the course until 2017 - after i've already graduated). I will admit that I have not actually finished the entire book, but I think I have covered enough of the material to make an opinion. In my opinion, the book reads like a literature review on AI.

Two-year-old DemandJump Inc. is one of the area's hottest startups--and it had a 2016 that many startups would kill for. Last year, the Indianapolis-based company won two TechPoint Mira awards (often called the Oscars of Indiana tech), was a finalist for the prestigious Red Herring Top 100 Global award, added former Wal-Mart marketing chief Julie Lyle to its team, and secured an investment from Boston-based venture capital heavyweight Bob Davoli. The 17-person company, which targets marketers with its artificial intelligence software, has not raised a ton of money--about $2.6 million so far. But it's approaching $1 million in annualized revenue with a product that's been on the market only nine months. And the company has caught the attention of research firms Forrester and Intelligentsia.

In early February, Target stunned its employees when it announced it was shutting down it's store of the future, before it was even opened. With Amazon's December announcement of Amazon Go, new technology for their mini-grocery stores will require substantially less employees to run and automate check-out. Grab and go shopping really is the advent of the Internet of things in retail with a few twists. We can think of it as mobile-centric Just Walk Out Technology, as Amazon has branded it. So what makes it possible?

In my last retail review, I explored how my learnings at NRF 2017 changed my view ofthe so-called omni-channel (Omni-channel may be science fiction, but a single source of truth matters). That leaves open the impact of predictive, "AI", and personalization tech on retail. CEO and Founder Alan O'Herlihy gave me a fast-paced rundown of how his company has become entrenched in five of the ten largest global retailers. How did they pull it off? Get ready for this one: instead of pursing the singularity, they focused their deep learning tech on a real world pain point: lost sales at the point of sale.

What will shopping be like in 10 years? No one knows all the details (that's exciting!), but one thing is for sure: it will be very different than it is today. History is clear about that. In the mid-19th century, most people in the US were shopping at small markets. They would tell the manager what they wanted, and then wait for the item to be retrieved from the back or from the supplier.

Amazon is bringing Alexa to the iPhone today right inside of the company's main app. While this isn't the first time Alexa has been on a smartphone -- third parties have made it happen already -- this is the first time it's coming directly from Amazon. And it could be a huge help to anyone who's filling their home with Alexa-enabled devices. Inside of the Amazon App for iOS, there will be a microphone icon near the top of the screen that you can press to call up Alexa. You'll be able to ask the assistant almost anything you'd normally be able to ask through a device like the Echo.

Amazon's virtual assistant just got a much wider audience. The company announced it's integrating Alexa into its main shopping app on iPhone, starting today with a full rollout expected by next week. The assistant can do more than just provide a voice interface to Amazon's retail store, however – it can also control your smart home, play your music or Kindle books, answer questions, check the news and weather, and take advantage of Alexa's extensions, known as Skills. Basically, it's a mobile version of Alexa that you can use even without Amazon hardware, like an Echo speaker or Fire TV. It may seem a bit odd to think of using a virtual assistant via a shopping app rather than, say, the existing Alexa mobile app.

Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing Co. is betting that speed, both in supplying its stores with the latest fashion and getting custom-made products to shoppers, will allow it to overtake apparel powerhouse Zara. Fast Retailing plans to shorten the time it takes from design to delivery to about 13 days, roughly the same as Zara, owned by the world's biggest clothes retailer Inditex SA, Uniqlo's billionaire owner Tadashi Yanai said in an interview at the company's new design and delivery center that opened Thursday in an industrial area of Tokyo. The new complex will also help Uniqlo expand direct-to-consumer, custom-clothing sales and improve the efficiency of its same-day delivery in the Tokyo area, he said. "We need to be fast," he said. "We need to deliver products customers want quickly."