Amazon.com Inc. acquired artificial-intelligence startup Orbeus Inc. last fall, sources told Bloomberg, though neither company has announced the deal and wouldn't comment. Orbeus offers artificial intelligence-powered photo-recognition technology called ReKognition that automatically identifies and categorizes photo content. Other companies are making similar moves to acquire AI startups: Apple acquired facial-recognition company Emotient Inc. in January and Salesforce Monday said it had acquired image-recognition startup MetaMind. Amazon's Web Services (AWS) cloud-computing unit is widely seen as supporting its retail profits, which have lagged behind costs. Amazon's net sales grew 21.7% to 35.75 billion in the fourth quarter, compared to sales from AWS that increased 69.4% to 2.41 billion.

Amazon.com Inc., the largest internet retailer in the world, has acquired Artificial Intelligence-based deep learning startup Orbeus Inc. The acquisition underlines the effort made by Amazon to dig deeper into the world of smart software for its businesses in the cloud computing and connected devices spheres. This development was revealed by an Amazon insider who chose to remain anonymous as the company is yet make an official statement about the acquisition. Amazon's CEO Yi Li and other representatives of the company have not commented on the matter either. However, online search has disclosed that the domain name of Orbeus, Orbe.us, is registered in the name of Amazon Hostmaster, which is a part of Amazon technologies Inc., an Amazon subsidiary.

Messaging app Kik has launched an online store for chatbots, to allow brands to talk to users via bots. Chatbots - computer programs designed to simulate conversation with humans - are increasingly being seen as a key way to engage customers.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) completed a discrete acquisition, last fall, when it took over Sunnyvale California-based artificial-intelligence (AI) startup Orbeus Inc. Bloomberg cites sources that claim that Amazon has absorbed almost all of Orbeus' workforce in its own teams though the financial terms of the acquisition deal remain undisclosed. Orbeus is known for applying machine-learning tools on image processing. Prior to its takeover by Amazon, Orbeus had an AI tool under development that could use neural networks to identify, and categorize the content in various images. Its customers were mostly developers, who could purchase its image-processing application programming interface (API) called, ReKognition. The startup also designed an Android and iOS app called, PhotoTime which helps tag photos instantly.

Messaging app Kik has launched an online store for chatbots, to allow brands to talk to users via bots. Chatbots - computer programs designed to simulate conversation with humans - are increasingly being seen as a key way to engage customers. Kik, which has 275 million users, has signed up 16 partners including make-up store Sephora and The Weather Channel. Microsoft opened a chatbot store last week and Facebook is expected to follow suit. In Kik's store, users will be able to download bots for entertainment, customer service and shopping.

Were you able to attend this year's South by Southwest (SXSW)? As always, the annual convergence of anything relevant and compelling has ignited some amazing conversation. THE FUTURE OF BIG DATA AND AI, by far one of our favorite panels, brought to light persuasive commentary on the applications of AI and how data has renewed these functions. Being the retail aficionados that we are, we couldn't help but tie those topics right back to retail and eCommerce. Amongst the four panelist, Dr. Doug Lenant, CEO of Cycorp, affirmed that deep learning technology has been around for about 30 years.

Amazon.com Inc. acquired artificial-intelligence startup Orbeus Inc., according to a person familiar with the matter, part of a broader push by the world's largest Internet retailer into smart software for its cloud-computing and connected-device businesses. The acquisition took place in the fall of 2015, said the person who asked not to be identified because Amazon hasn't announced the deal. An Amazon spokeswoman and representatives at Sunnyvale, California-based Orbeus, including Chief Executive Officer Yi Li, did not respond to requests for comment. An online search shows that the startup's domain name, Orbe.us, is owned by registrant Amazon Hostmaster, part of an Amazon subsidiary called Amazon Technologies Inc. Orbeus developed photo-recognition technology based on a powerful type of AI called neural networks and made this available as a consumer application, as well as a service for other companies and developers called ReKognition. It automatically categorized and identified the contents of photos. Orbeus's app, PhotoTime, came out before Google launched its successful AI-based Photos app.

Perhaps you heard recently about a new algorithm that can drive a car? Or scan a picture and find your face in a crowd? It seems as though every week companies are finding new uses for algorithms that adapt as they encounter new data. Last year Wired quoted an ex-Google employee as saying that "Everything in the company is really driven by machine learning." Machine learning has tremendous potential to transform companies, but in practice it's mostly far more mundane than robot drivers and chefs.

During the dot-com boom, online clothing sales were predicted to grow to 40% -50% of total sales. Although online sales of some other kinds of merchandise, such as books, have reached 50% of the market in the past 15 years, the percentage of online clothing sales hovers around 20%. The difficulty in finding the correct size and fit is one of the primary reasons that consumers are reluctant to buy clothes online. And their concern is not groundless; sizing varies among clothing manufacturers, and it is difficult to ascertain fit from online images. Consequently, 30%-40% of online clothing purchases are returned.

When Amazon executive Dave Limp first saw the pitch for the product that would become Echo in 2011, his main reaction was doubt. "This is going to be hard," Limp recalls thinking. But it would require a lot of inventions." The reaction was understandable given the lofty goals outlined in the Echo's original plan: It envisioned an intelligent, voice-controlled household appliance that could play music, read the news aloud and order groceries -- all by simply letting users talk to it from anywhere in the house. Since that time, the Echo has emerged as Amazon's sleeper hit, a hot-selling gadget that's being hailed as the standard-bearer for an entirely new computing paradigm in which Amazon suddenly has an edge on rivals such as Apple and Google. But the Echo's path into consumers' homes was hardly a sure thing. The gadget was stuck in Amazon's in-house labs for years, subject to the perfectionist demands of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and lengthy internal debates about its market appeal.