One-to-one customer engagement enabled by machine learning yields a 13 percent reduction in bounce rate and a 33 percent average order value improvement at Marmot. A recent study from Gallup shed light on just how valuable it is to invest in customer engagement. Fully engaged customers, defined as those who have had a measurable reaction, connection, or experience with your brand, represent a 23 percent share of wallet, profitability, revenue, and relationship growth premium compared to average shoppers. By contrast, the study found that disengaged customers -- those who have no emotional connection to your brand -- represent a 13 percent discount in those same measures. It's no surprise that customer engagement and loyalty applications have been hot in retail, particularly e-commerce, where customer data is easier to gather and easier to analyze than in any other channel.

Imagine a world where bots are ubiquitous… a world where nearly every online interaction takes place with a Siri, Alexa, Cortana or some soon-to-be-named artificial being. Here, banking is a breeze, as a customer service bot can quickly extrapolate your banking preferences from your online search history. In this world, your cupboards and refrigerator are always full, because your groceries are reordered every week automatically, based on consumption data. But in such a world, where bots provide the ultimate convenience of a futuristic lifestyle, is there still room for human help? At the most recent F8 Conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made some bold claims about a bot's place in the future of commerce.

The market is a massive, irrational, and fluid amalgamation of all information available in the public domain, at least according to the efficient market hypothesis. The famous quote, that "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent," holds significance, because it illustrates the perpetual struggle that we face in trying to understand its inner machinations. The market is both a byproduct of human innovation, as well as a microcosm of the world we live in. Just as we can't definitively know how the market will move, we can't definitively know how the choices we make will affect the world we live in. Therein lays the real challenge, in which we take everything we think we know and make an analytical decision, because afterward all that is left is to wait and see if it was the right call.

Apps like Tinder were designed to make the process of dating quicker and more efficient, by only matching people with other who are interested in them to save people from rejection. But new evidence suggests the apps have created a different kind of problem – men play Tinder like a game, swiping right to everyone just to see who has'liked' them. This can be frustrating for women, who are pickier about who they match with, since men they are paired with are less likely to reply to their messages, a new study has found. Evidence shows people on Tinder are not motivated enough to speak to someone they match with. Both men and women are unlikely to message even after mutually liking another profile, a new study has found.

He is better known for wrestling with the mysterious forces that shape our universe and the existential threat posed by technology. But physicist Stephen Hawking now fears greed could be the undoing of the human race. The University of Cambridge professor has warned that the unequal divide of wealth between individuals and countries is one of the most divisive issues of our time. He claims envy and isolationism is being bred by the way money is currently shared and this may have contributed to the result of the European Union Brexit referendum result in Britain. Professor Stephen Hawking (pictured) has warned the sense of inequality that drove the Brexit vote was driven by the way wealth is viewed and shared in many parts of the world.

The Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the largest update to the PC software since it launched last year, has become available to consumers today. The global update sees Microsoft's virtual assistant Cortana become more central, being used as part of any search, while a new feature called Windows Ink enables users to annotate on their screens more freely, and across different apps, with a stylus. The Anniversary Update comes just days after Microsoft ended a free upgrade program for users eligible to update to Windows 10, which was released in July last year. More than 350 million devices have been upgraded to Windows 10 since the software was released last year. The new update sees Microsoft's virtual assistant Cortana become more central, being used as part of any search. A new feature called Windows Ink enables users to annotate on their screens more freely, and across different apps, with a stylus.

It has generated a mixed reception from users and sparked controversy over the way it collects data from personal computers, but Microsoft's latest operating system is about to get more expensive. The software giant has been offering Windows 10 to users for free over the past year, but the free download period is now due to end in just a few hours. From tomorrow Windows 10 will cost between 99.99- 189.99 ( 119- 200) to download, depending on the version you buy. Microsoft has also introduced a smart assistant, similar to Siri, called Cortana. To use Cortana, users simply type a question into a search box on the taskbar, or can even verbally ask a question into the computer's microphone The company has been pushing hard to encourage users to upgrade to the new operating system.

Sticking on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones can make even the most miserable morning commute on public transport more bearable. But this musical solace comes at a price – not being able to hear safety announcements, or even someone calling your name. Amazon could be set to change that, with its plans for a set of noise-cancelling cans which cut the filter when triggered by safety words or phrases, such as someone yelling out for you. Plans in a patent awarded to Amazon detail smart headphones which could suspend noise-cancellation when they hear a key word or phrase. One example of this keyword spotting outlined is someone listening to the headphones when a person says'Hey Ben', at which point the noise-cancellation feature would be suspended for them to hear.

Young adults of the'Tinder generation' are having less sex than any generation since the 1920s, a study suggests. Experts have assumed that people born in the 1990s - known as'Millennials' - were more promiscuous than those who came before, due to the availability and popularity of dating apps such as Tinder and Gridr. But scientists at Florida Atlantic University have found that people aged 20 to 24 today are more likely to abstain from sex than any generation for 90 years. Some 15 per cent percent of this age group in the US have had no sexual partners since turning 18, the researchers found. Of those born in the 1960s, only 6 per cent had not had sex when they were at the same age.

Back in August, Facebook introduced'M', its new personal assistant tool which will live inside Messenger. Like Apple's'Siri' or Microsoft's'Cortana', users will be able to ask questions of M and have the system respond, via message, providing detailed information and assistance as required. Where M goes beyond those previous personal assistant services, however, is that M can do more complex tasks – like booking plane tickets, chasing up a refund on your behalf, or even finding the best deals and making purchases for you, at your request. In constructing M, Facebook's taken a slightly different path. While M is largely AI based, and responds to most queries based on algorithms, M also has a team of people working to help the system deal with more complex requests, stepping in when the system gets confused and providing additional assistance and advice on top of M's binary workings.