This year, holiday shipping timelines are going to be tighter than ever. WIRED will be covering all things Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but we're keeping our eyes peeled for early-bird discounts on the tried-and-true gear we love so that you can ensure loved one receives their gifts on time. This week, we found plenty of price drops on video games and gaming accessories. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like).

What if AI could negotiate commercial contracts better than humans? This is the idea that is being tested by Pactum, a startup that has just raised a $1.15m pre-seed round from an impressive roster of Estonian tech luminaries, including Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype and Kazaa, Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of TransferWise, Ott Kaukver, chief technical officer of Twilio and Sten Tamkivi, general manager at Skype and chief product officer at Topia. Here is the pitch: Fortune 500 companies have collectively some 12m supplier contracts that are unmanaged. They may be too small or numerous for them to be looked at in detail by a human negotiator, so everyone is given a standard contract, take it or leave it. "It is too complicated for humans, if you are marketplace with 3m partners, for example, you can't tailor contracts," says Kaspar Korjus, co-founder and chief product officer at Pactum.

Technology has long since advanced to the point where it can make decisions better than people can, and yet grocery managers are still happy to use their own experience to drive decision-making, sacrificing speed, efficiency and savings. By optimising key strategic areas of pricing and replenishment, and automating decisions using machine learning, retailers can combine the speed of their decisions with their KPIs (margins, volumes, mark downs). Yet still retailers are not currently marrying the two in a responsive and effective way. As part of Blue Yonder's recent survey of 750 grocery retailers across the globe, we asked some probing questions about decision making and customer service. The research revealed that grocery retailers believe robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence will be some of the key game changers for the industry.

To many, hoverboards may seem like last year's fad, but don't tell Walmart or Target. In revealing their respective Black Friday deals on Thursday, both major retailers announced deep discounts on theelectric-powered skateboards as part of their Thanksgiving night "doorbusters." It shows there is still life in the consumer product that looked like it might be a goner after a rough year. After being last year's holiday hit, schools and colleges banished them. Some were recalled after reports of fires and they were banned from airlines.

Whether you choose man or machine, it takes a lot of money to avoid mowing the lawn. I've spent the past six weeks reviewing the Robomow RS612, a robot lawnmower that can automatically cut your grass and rescue your summer afternoons. This model costs 1,600 (Robomow doesn't offer this model in Australia or the UK but that price works out to AU 2,079 and 1,226), and other Robomow models that can cover larger yards can cost as much as 2,100 (AU 2,729 and 1,610). A less-expensive option for bowing out of lawn care is to hire a professional, which can cost less than 1,000 a year. So why would you splurge on a robot lawnmower when a real-life person is so much cheaper?