Retail has always been extremely competitive, and never more so than in this post-pandemic scenario. Over the next year or so, retailers will have to make good their losses from 2020 and accelerate their growth so as to continue being relevant in a world of evolving choices. At the same time, customers continue to expect on-demand service that balances efficiency with empathy – a challenging task.

The past year has been a busy one for Bumble, which grew to more than 700 employees worldwide and launched its initial public offering in February. The nearly seven-year-old dating app in which women must initiate the first message remained busy during the pandemic, reporting that "virtual dating" through video chats increased 70 percent on the app since shutdowns began in March 2020.

This year finds us in a much different place than last. Instead of hunkering down for a chilly, lonely winter, we're flinging aside our face masks and getting ready to return to the outside world. However, if you're having friends over for the first time in more than a year, you might still need help vacuuming the living room carpet. Or maybe you're styling your hair to appear in public for the first time in a loooong time and have forgotten how to do it! If that's the case, we can help! We perused all of Amazon's Prime Day deals for the second day to find the best ones for you, your kids, and your dusty corners and kitchen counters. Note: We regularly update articles and strike through items that sell out or rise in price as of publishing, and mark discounts based on recent product pricing or average price, not MSRP.

Back then engineering was all about blueprints, sketches, and physical models. But today it is intensively about software tools and computer designs. The demand for artificial intelligence and digital technology has been gaining momentum. Advancements in the AI sector are transforming smart systems and supervised machine learning to a great extent. Artificial intelligence systems will ease the laborious tasks that engineers do such as finding relevant content, fixing errors, and determining solutions.

There was a time where astronauts on the International Space Station were all alone. But with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, now they feel less lonely. Crew Interactive MObileCompanioN (CIMON) is an AI Astronaut Assistant that is developed by German space agency DLR, Airbus, and IBM. The project lead for this first free-flying AI astronaut, Matthias Biniok, was approached for this big project in 2016. Their main aim, was to build a robot and send it into space for providing assistance.

This week, Bumble's more than 750 employees are taking the week off. In an email to USA TODAY, the dating app confirmed all its workers will have this week as a paid vacation to allow them to relax and refresh as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions ease and vaccinations rise. Bumble will still have some staff members on hand to make sure the app continues to operate normally -- who will receive a separate paid week off, according to the company. CNN reported that Bumble staffer Clare O'Connor wrote in a since-deleted Tweet the dating app's founder and CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd, made the decision to provide paid time off after picking up on employees' "collective burnout." Launched in 2014, Bumble made a splash in the dating app pool by requiring women to make the first move when attempting a match.

Tinder is enamored with video. After giving serial daters the ability to video chat last fall, the app is now letting members add multiple clips to their profile. Starting today, users will be able to edit and upload up to nine recorded videos from their phone to their Tinder profile. This, the company says, offers members a more "authentic way to express themselves." In particular, Tinder expects its Gen Z users raised on TikTok and YouTube to take to the feature with aplomb. The demographic makes up 50 percent of its global user base.

Care to chat before you swipe left or right? Tinder will roll out an update Tuesday introducing several big features, including the opportunity to chat with potential singles before making a match, the social app announced. The feature, called Hot Takes, is described as a social experience, and the first time Tinder users are able to chat with each other before they match. A timer during the session will tick down, allowing users to choose whether it expires and move on or complete a match. Also coming to Tinder: the option to add videos to their profiles, and an Explore tab where users can find people based on shared interests.

I've just come out of a long-term lockdown. Instead, they crave the friendships and social groups they have been starved of over the past year. That's the verdict of dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble, which are launching or acquiring new services focused entirely on making and maintaining friends. "There's a really interesting trend that has been taking place in the connection space, which is this desire to have platonic relationships," said Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd. "People are seeking friendship in ways they would have only done offline before the pandemic."

Before we get into the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and where it is set to take digital commerce, I think we should begin by unpacking a definition of digital commerce – what does it mean? It can be defined as the process of selling and buying products and/or services using digital channels. It includes the people, processes and technologies necessary to execute the offering of product, promotions, pricing, analytics, customer acquisition plus retention, and customer experience at all touchpoints throughout the buying journey. This definition can be applied to all sectors of business irrelevant of area of operations, so it includes banking, retail, automotive, etc. Sector is irrelevant in a world of digital transformation at the speed of COVID – all businesses seek digital channels to market their goods. Today, digital channels have been expanded to relate to digital transformation that is inclusive of people, processes and technologies used throughout the customer buying excursion.