We are witnessing rapid advancements in the area of large language models (LLMs). A search on Google Scholar shows there are about 3,910 papers with "large language models" in the titles of the papers in 2022. As of April 12, 2023, there are already 1700 articles with LLMs in their titles. In addition to Google Scholar, we are also witnessing huge volumes of blog posts, news articles, twitter feeds, and open-source repositories around LLMs that have sprung up in recent months. Perhaps ChatGPT (released on November 30, 2022) is the epitome of this LLM revolution that truly unleashed and showcased, to the masses, the power of what has been brewing in the natural language and machine learning communities in recent years.

Cyber Monday is now in full swing. If you haven't already done your shopping, now's the time--today's the last day of this month's hot deals. Fortunately for latecomers, many of the best-known tech devices have kept their exciting discounts. TVs, laptops, tablets, and Apple gear are just the tip of the iceberg. Best Buy covers it all, and we've picked through the sales to find the best bargains.

As Head of Customer Experience (CX) for Cyara, I'm responsible for post-sales activities and I lead the customer success, professional services and support teams. Our technology is used by some of the world's top brands to automate and accelerate testing of their CX. We deploy bots to measure and optimize the quality of digital and voice channels to ensure customers' deliver flawless omnichannel customer journeys from beginning to end. In short, my role is to continue to build upon Cyara's successful track record and drive innovation that exceeds customers' demands, accelerate time-to-value, and build strategic customer relationships that lead to high customer satisfaction and maximize retention of SaaS clients. Cyara provides automated CX testing and monitoring for quality assurance.

I warned that the usual draws for Black Friday had disappeared. Deep discounting had already been the primary strategy that companies had been using to try to recover from Covid-19, which meant the massive sales had become normal. Plus, 70% of American adults report struggling to pay bills, leaving less disposable income for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It looked like price-sensitive customers had temporarily disappeared, making cutting prices less effective than in the past. I wrote an article forecasting that Black Friday and Cyber Monday were poised to disappoint.

Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are here, and it's the perfect time to finally purchase that big-ticket item you've been eyeing. For those who have been curious about robot vacuums, you can score a coveted iRobot Roomba for way less this Cyber Monday. Get expert shopping advice delivered to your phone. Sign up for text message alerts from the deal-hunting nerds at Reviewed.

Bagging discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday has become a yearly ritual for many of us. The roots go back to the early 20th century – a folk belief is that it is the day retailers go "into the black" after running at a loss for the year. In reality the term was first connected with the day after Thanksgiving as a comment on the nightmarish congestion generated by the crowds in Philadelphia. In the 1980s sports games gave way to shopping as the public's favourite post-Thanksgiving pastime. Cyber Monday arose in the mid-noughties when marketers realized that workers returning to the office following Thanksgiving breaks were making use of high-speed internet connections to shop online bargains.

Pick up any good bargains on Cyber Monday? Amazon has just announced it to have been the single biggest shopping day (in terms of number of items sold) in the company's history, with millions of people hitting its site to make the most of the day's discounts and offers. In the U.S., the best-selling item at Amazon.com on Monday was the all-new Echo Dot smart speaker, with "millions" sold, though Amazon declined to offer a specific figure. Other top sellers included Bose QC 25 noise-canceling headphones, the multi-use Instant Pot Duo, Michelle Obama's autobiography Becoming, and the Jenga game. Across the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, Amazon said customers ordered a staggering 180 million items via its U.S. site alone.

Amazon's Prime Day is July 16. Chinese tech IPOs are the talk of the town this week following Xiaomi's listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In spite of its less-than-ideal debut, analysts expect a flood of Chinese tech firms--including Jack Ma-backed Ant Financial and online food delivery service Meituan-Dianping--to go public this year. A month ago, another Chinese tech company with grand ambitions had already made the jump: Ecovacs Robotics, whose line of robot vacuum cleaners dominate its native Chinese market and on Amazon.com. Headquarted in Suzhou, Ecovacs raised 803 million yuan ($121 million) when it listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on May 28, making its founder, Qian Dongqi, a billionaire.