Many years ago (don't ask me how I know this!) the hamburger chain Burger King began branding themselves with this slogan: "Have it your way!" It was pure marketing genius! The idea that you could order something, in this case a hamburger, at a fast food dispensary that would be tailor-made to your specific personal tastes was revolutionary – it set them apart from their competitors. Something similar happened when Amazon.com, one of the first major online stores in the Internet era, began suggesting books (and other products) to their customers that were an amazingly good match to each individual's personal tastes. Of course, Amazon accommodated its customers with this value-added service by invoking a scientific procedure, data science applied to customer data, not by asking customers directly (as did Burger King).

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has been talking about the commercial use of drones for quite some time now. However, in a recent interview, CEO Jeff Bezos assured artificial intelligence (AI) is the next big thing. Nonetheless, Chinese firm Ehang might disagree with this idea; in fact, the company is betting on drone taxis as the next attention-grabbing innovation in a move that could remind readers of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s autonomous car initiative or Zee.Aero's flying car. Back in January, Ehang, a cameras and drones maker, presented its electric passenger drone, the Ehang 184. Now, the Chinese corporation has partnered with the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS) and the Governor's Office of Economic Development (Goed) to test the vehicle and, ultimately, get regulatory approval.

Where else but the Code Conference can you expect to hear from the Tech industry's biggest players like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai? Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version gave the wrong year Amazon won Emmys for Transparent. Speaking to the Code conference here, Bezos, whose company has a hit on its hand with the Echo connected speaker, said, "it's hard to overstate how big of an impact this will have on society over the next 20 years. It doesn't mean phones are going to go away or that voice actions will replace screens. As long as people have eyes, they have screens."

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to lead a session at the SAS Global Forum, along with Intel VP Steve Brown and Lori Schafer, SAS Retail Executive Advisor, on how retailers can create better in-store context for today's connected customer. SAS Institute is a Cisco analytics partner and we had some exciting discussions during this event. Let's take a minute to define what we mean by the connected consumer. First, let's not get too focused on the idea of Millennials or Generation Y – users of all ages are very active on their mobile devices and social media. What we are talking about is not an age group, but a group of consumers that is always connected via their smart devices.

Jeff Bezos has become a household name in the retail and tech industries for his ability to anticipate trends and his willingness to take risks. Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, holds the Kindle Paperwhite at the introduction of the new Amazon Kindle Fire HD and Paperwhite devices. When the Amazon CEO spoke at Recode's Code Conference eight years ago, the online retail giant had just recently launched its Kindle e-reader, which has since proven to be a tremendous success. Bezos attended that same conference Tuesday evening in Los Angeles, but this time, his goals were even more extravagant and future-focused than ever: In his talk with Recode editor-at-large Walt Mossberg, he discussed artificial intelligence and his ideas for saving the planet. During their conversation, which was recorded and published by Recode, Bezos claimed that the way to protect the planet is "by going into outer space."

Following the event, Mossberg appeared on CNBC on Wednesday, to talk about this dialogue. Below is a look into five things the editor learned from Bezos -- also described in this ReCode article. One lesson learned from Bezos was about wandering down diverse ideas roads, encouraging brainstorming and taking risks. When working on a project, the CEO likes to be "stubborn on the vision, but flexible on the details," sticking with ideas until "the last high-judgment champion folds his or her cards." As suggested not only by Bezos, but also by Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB)'s COO Sheryl Sandberg, artificial intelligence will be the next big thing in the tech innovation arena.

Welcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Recode by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, now an Executive Editor at The Verge and Editor at Large of Recode. Last week, I interviewed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on stage at our third annual Code Conference. It wasn't my first such public conversation with Bezos -- we had done an earlier interview in 2008 at the D conference, the predecessor to Code. Bezos joked that he appeared at our conferences "every eight years like clockwork." Back in May of 2008, the Kindle was still quite new, and we focused on that.

At the upscale Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California, people are taking selfies with a roving robot that looks like a cross between Wall-E's girlfriend and R2D2. It's actually a K5 robot security guard--a 300-pound, sensor-filled droid made by a startup called Knightscope that patrols the area and detects suspicious behavior. K5 is part of a small but growing number of human-scale mobile robots that are finding employment outside the confines of industrial settings like factories. They're invading consumer spaces including retail stores, hotels, and sidewalks in a quest to deliver services alongside human staff members for a fraction of the price of employing people to do a variety of typically unexciting tasks. The machines come with navigation capabilities and safety features to allow them to perform simple jobs autonomously without putting people at risk.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos talks with The Verge's Walt Mossberg about the "gigantic" potential of artificial intelligence to change everything from shopping to self-driving cars. Bezos also discusses his purchase of the Washington Post in 2013, which he says is transforming from a local to a global institution. He explains why he opposes both Peter Thiel's campaign against Gawker Media and Donald Trump's attempts to "freeze or chill" press scrutiny. Plus: Why Bezos's other company, Blue Origin, is trying to lower the cost of entrepreneurship in space.

I'm Gwyn, your gift concierge, and I will help you pick the perfect gift." With this introduction, 1-800-Flowers.com is aligning the customer-centric traditions of its signature floral and gourmet gift delivery business with the emerging technology of the 21st century. GWYN, an acronym for Gifts When You Need, is an artificial intelligence (AI) engine based on the IBM Watson-powered Fluid Expert Personal Shopper (XPS) digital commerce platform, and her customer service skills add a new page to the Carle Place, New York-based gifting empire's playbook. On the surface, the concept is straightforward. GWYN (or more informally, Gwyn) is an online representative, or virtual concierge. She--and the AI definitely identifies as female--is designed to mimic natural language and assist customers in navigating through the products available at 1-800-Flowers.com. GWYN can make suggestions, answer questions and help complete a purchase. Of course, it's not easy to make tech look this effortless. To that end, she uses a rather intricate question analysis API. "We developed GYWN as another way to create a great customer experience," Dave Taiclet, president of 1-800-Flowers.com's Gourmet Food Group, told Retail Dive. "When people want to give a gift, there's a lot of ways they go about it.