In an enormous grocery store in northern France, the lights above the aisles aren't all they seem to be. They look ordinary--more than a mile and a half of fixtures exuding bright light, folded into a grid overhead--but they're actually flickering faster than the human eye can see. The unique patterns each individual section of lighting emits are a 21st-century twist on Morse code, meant not for people, but for the cameras on their phones. If shoppers grant the store's app access to their smartphone's front-facing lens, the phone can watch for the lights and use the pulses to pinpoint its location. Doing so allows the app to plot the best routes for shopping lists, tracking people as they travel through the store.

Amazon Prime customers will now have access to a new feature from the company called "voice shopping." From Nov. 18 till Nov. 21, the company will hold its first voice-shopping weekend. It will offer exclusive deals to Prime members who have an Alexa-enabled device. "This is the first holiday that Prime members will be able to use their voice to shop and we're excited to offer exclusive deals they won't find anywhere else," said Assaf Ronen, Vice President Voice Shopping in the official press release. "Voice shopping with Alexa takes the hassle out of the holidays, giving customers the ability to order from millions of items simply by saying the word. Make sure to ask'Alexa, what are your deals?' every day because we'll have exciting deals throughout the holiday season and beyond."

We have all had the experience. You are doing some on-line shopping. You drop a few items into your shopping cart and the website gets'helpful.' Across the bottom of the screen you see a collection of other items and you are told that they might be of interest to you. And the odd thing is, they mostly are kind of interesting.

We keep hearing that robots are going to take our jobs, but a company called MindMeld is giving us an idea how with its "Deep-Domain Conversational AI Platform." It'll allow bots that can essentially replace customer service agents and even baristas by answering complicated voice or text queries over Google Assistant, Amazon Echo, Facebook Messenger and other popular platforms. Uniqlo, for one, will offer a Facebook bot that can answer questions about its products, services and retail locations with more detail than ever. The "MindMeld Language Parser" helps it understand and answer questions with "human-like accuracy," whether by talk or text, the company says. It adds that while current AI toolkits from Google, Facebook and others are great, they provide "little data suitable for production-quality applications" -- in other words, they can do deep learning, but don't give companies anything to teach them.

To most people, artificial intelligence (AI) is represented in terms of robots with human-like similarities. Today's reality is that of AI powering technologies and driving companies to complete tasks and make things easier. Companies are using AI more than ever, even for tasks that you may not consider. To understand how AI impacts your business, it's important to understand exactly what artificial intelligence is. According to Merriam Webster artificial intelligence is, "an area of computer science that deals with giving machines the ability to seem like they have human intelligence."

Few industries are as competitive as ecommerce. Not only are online retailers competing with other online stores and brick-and-mortar locations, but also the overall noise that is the Internet. We live in a world where consumer attention span is getting shorter and shorter: 40 percent of people abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load, and the average shopping cart is abandoned more than 68 percent of the time. I'm hard pressed to find an ecommerce site that is not constantly scrambling to engage more and drive more sales. Technology is finally helping with those efforts in a big way.

If online retailers want to make more sales and retain customers, they better stop making those clients do all the leg work. Randy Dean, chief business officer at Sentient Technologies, urged the audience at WIRED Retail to stop expecting customers to use outdated interfaces that are essentially databases asking users to search, browse and narrow the field by selecting multiple options. Our internet connections have become infinitely faster over the past decade, yet retailers still expect customer behaviour to remain the same. "We need to change the way people interact with our products. We have to get rid of the filtering systems and search boxes, and let the products speak for themselves."

The online retailer plans to add deals every five minutes from now until December 22nd. Amazon, the sleeping giant as other retailers unveiled their Black Friday plans, is back with a vengeance, rolling out a slew of rock-bottom deals on television sets. While not every deal has been detailed, the company has put out a list of some items customers can expect to see discounted at various points over the 35 days. Other deals include a Denon Heos 1 speaker for $99.99 and Sennheiser's HD 598 Cs Closed Back Headphones for $99.95, both roughly $100 off. Hyundai is how owners can now use Amazon's Echo home connectivity system in conjunction with their cars (Photo: Hyundai) As has already been seen at other retailers, Amazon will be giving its own devices some hefty discounts.

The Amazon Echo was one of the most popular items during last year's Black Friday, and it's back this year for an even lower price. This model is Amazon-certified refurbished, and carries a one-year warranty – the same as a brand new one. It has been thoroughly tested, and it's certified to work and look like new. The built-in Alexa voice assistant will play songs, set reminders or alarms, order you an Uber, and even control your smart home. The Amazon Echo is the home gadget of the future, and word on the street is that if you use Alexa to buy items on Amazon, they'll offer you exclusive deals to make it worth your while.

Need help picking a gift? The 2016 holiday is fast approaching. That means one thing: gadget time. These are the TIME technology team's suggestions for everything from stocking stuffers, like Nintendo's NES Classic, to high-end cameras like Fujifilm's X-T2. Our suggestions are sorted by budget, from least to most expensive. We've also included a few lines about why we like each gadget we've picked for the list. Why we like it: They're a pair of neon-orange clip-on plastic extensions that make it easier to take down targets with the current or last-gen PlayStation and Xbox controllers. After using them to play games like Overwatch, Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, we'll never go back. What to know: Purists may consider using these to be cheating. Why we like it: These Bluetooth-powered tags play a little song when prompted, so you can find them if they are within 100 feet of your cellphone. Tile Slim is just the width of two credit cards, letting it slip in a wallet with minimal heft, and Tile Mate is 25% smaller than the original tile -- making it a perfect keychain fob. What to know: Out of range doesn't mean out of luck. Selecting "notify when found" taps the community of Tile owners, anonymously. So, when someone walks past your lost item, their app will detect it and report it to the service, which will reveal its location on your app. Uber Gift Card ($25) Suzanne Darcy for TIME Who's it for: Anyone who lives in an area where Uber is available, especially in cities. Why we like it: It's an easy way to treat a friend or family member to a free ride, since recipients just need to enter the Gift Code in the Payments section of the app. Gift cards are sold in retail chains such as Walmart, Target, and CVS. What to know: Uber gift cards can't be used to make purchases through the company's other services, like UberEATS and UberRUSH. Why we like it: There are plenty of affordable streaming options out there, but the Chromecast makes browsing content as easy as using your smartphone. Since the Chromecast runs compatible apps from your phone on your TV, you don't need to log into apps on your TV or get used to a new interface. What to know: Your phone must be nearby in order to use and control the Chromecast.