Bossa Nova Robotics, a company specializing in building robotic technology for retailers, has raised 14 million to expedite the rollout of its robots in stores. Founded out of Pittsburgh, with offices in San Francisco as well, Bossa Nova has been developing its robot technology over the past few years, setting out to serve retailers through automation and analytics. Its machines analyze stock on shelves and collect data to optimize inventory, with fully autonomous robots unleashed in stores among shoppers. The company says it is now testing its "retail robots" with "five of the world's leading retail chains," though it wouldn't divulge any names. What we're effectively talking about here is automating a task that would ordinarily be carried out by humans, with a view toward improving efficiency and productivity and cutting costs.

Everybody wants to look beautiful. We all like to be well dressed and keep up with fashion trends, but most times this is not possible. We are constrained by time, money and the skill to put together trendy outfits. The problem gets compounded when we go shopping online. Every store has 1000's of items in each category.

Do you remember what it was like the first time you got your hands on an iPhone? When you realized that all the things that you used to have to do on separate devices now could be accomplished on one single device? Well, the minds behind LogicBlox would like you to feel the same way about its foundational technology that collapses multiple technology stacks into a unified smart database environment that aims to enable enterprises to create sophisticated and easily iterated applications in one place. Transaction and analytics co-exist in the platform, with the system utilizing a single declarative language with extensions – such as Machine Learning capabilities and statistical relational models – to support prescriptive and predictive analytics. Users can leverage LogicBlox' full-blown database functionality to train Machine Learning models, for use in solving forecasting or optimization problems, for instance.

Amazon Inc. (AMZN) is on a roll. The world's biggest online retailer blew away analyst expecations Thursday with a 513 million profit, its fourth straight profitable quarter, sending its stock up nearly 12 percent after hours on the Nasdaq. The profit number for the first quarter of 2016 swung from a net loss of 57 million in the same quarter last year and nearly doubled an estimate of 272.6 million, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. The e-commerce giant posted 29.13 billion in revenue, up by 28 percent from 22.7 billion a year ago, driven by growth in its product sales and cloud computing businesses. Those figures beat analyst expectations of 27.9 billion in revenue.

Amazon said that a review of its entire U.S. staff found that women's compensation in 2015 was 99.9% of men's in equivalent jobs. Further, minorities make 100.1% of what white workers earn. SAN FRANCISCO -- Hear an echo? Amazon's first quarter results are likely to recall the themes of previous quarters, including the march of Prime and its cloud services business. Last year was an excellent one for the Seattle-based retailer.

When we were born, the idea of such a small, powerful computer was a sci-fi dream, and now these smart-devices are everywhere, transforming personal health, relationships and business transactions so completely that life without these seems impossible. We're entering a new era of technology that's bound to reshape the lives of our children predominantly. Yes, this is the era of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is one of the most talked subjects these days, and recent advances in technology have made AI even closer to reality than most of us can imagine. What was once just a figment of the imagination of some our most famous science fiction writers, artificial intelligence (AI) is taking root in our everyday lives. Binge-watching television shows and online shopping carts full of suggested add-ons are commonplace, even though most consumers aren't aware of what's powering the recommendations.

The findings of a recent survey from Nuance Communications into consumer preferences and expectations around customer self-service reveals that a significant number of consumers (89%) prefer, and even expect, to have conversational interaction. For 87%, a positive interaction with a company determines whether or not they will continue their relationship. With chat bots to the front of mind following Facebook's recent announcement, it is interesting to note from Nuance's survey that 89% of consumers "want to engage with virtual assistants to quickly find information instead of searching through Web pages or a mobile phone app on their own". The same need is reflected in consumers' desire to engage with automated phone systems that allow them to speak naturally. Nuance recently announced that one of the leading financial institutes in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is now using Nuance Nina, and intelligent virtual assistant that delivers "a human-like, conversational customer service experience" to assist customers to quickly and easily access information.

If you think that it's hard to remember where all your favorite products are in the local grocery store, well … it's not just you. In the case of large supermarkets carrying thousands of goods, even employees can have trouble remembering where everything is. That's why Toronto's 4D Retail Technology Corp. developed the stock-taking, store-mapping 4D Space Genius robot. In less than an hour, the self-guiding Segway-based Space Genius can reportedly move along every aisle of an average-sized (43,000 sq ft/3,995 sq m) supermarket or other large store, scanning all of the products and barcodes on display in HD and 3D as it does so. First and foremost, this allows it to create an interactive 3D map of the store, in which the location of every item is indicated.

Over the last several weeks, we've reached peak AI/Bot mania. Most of the conversation has centered around Chatbots and the potential emergence of a new platform/distribution layer. If you've been mostly ignoring the press, some good reads are: Tl;dr – the major takeaways are as follows: given that consumers don't really download apps anymore, brands & retailers have a new access point to end consumers, sitting on top of existing messaging platforms and leveraging chatbots to ensure mass scale. The truth is that the chatbot platform conversation is really just an extension of the one we had about a year ago during the emergence of Magic/Operator and SMS as the new platform, which we discussed in Are We Already Rebundling Mobile. An important extension given that such bots have been democratized and can now be spun up not just by tech companies, but by traditional retailers (on their own or within Messenger) or even by individuals such as you and me.

The use of robots on the retail sales floor is the same sort of double-edged sword as when used for the warehouse. Some see them as capable of handling arduous processes to allow employees to focus on customer service. Others see robots as pure replacements, threatening to cut out the need for real live human staff. The latest robot to make an appearance at the front of the store is, if it catches on, likely to generate the same sort of controversy. A company called 4D Retail Technology Corp. has created a robot capable of automating the inventory process by rolling through the aisles and imaging every product and every barcode in a store.