Companies are waging an invisible data war online. And your phone might be an unwitting soldier. Retailers from Amazon and Walmart to tiny startups want to know what their competitors charge. Brick and mortar retailers can send people, sometimes called "mystery shoppers," to their competitors' stores to make notes on prices. Online, there's no need to send people anywhere.

The annual C2 Montreal conference every May is widely considered to be the benchmark for corporate event design in North America, but it's actually much more than that. Inside Montreal's sprawling Arsenal contemporary art gallery this year, as reported last week in Skift, the show floor was filled with dozens of creative activations, such as networking experiences in trapeze chairs suspended from the ceiling. In a high point for the event, attendees booked more than 3,000 face-to-face meetings with each other to discuss topics of common interest via E-180's Braindate platform. Outside, a pop-up big top circus tent with 360-degree ceiling projection hosted the keynote sessions. Surrounding the tent, stacks of brightly painted shipping containers served as outdoor corporate VIP suites overlooking the dock and restaurant floating on a channel connected to the St. Lawrence River.

It was cool, but it was also a bit confounding. What was Apple trying to tell us about its future plans by showing us this particular company? Right after the keynote, one of the company's PR people emailed me to ask if I wanted to meet with Anki's CEO Boris Sofman, a Carnegie Mellon robotics guy (as are his two cofounders Hanns Tappeiner and Mark Palatucci). I accepted, mostly so I could find out what got Apple so excited about this little toy startup. Of course, they'd hate to be called a toy startup.