We have developed a new method to estimate a Next Viewpoint (NV) which is effective for pose estimation of simple-shaped products for product display robots in retail stores. Pose estimation methods using Neural Networks (NN) based on an RGBD camera are highly accurate, but their accuracy significantly decreases when the camera acquires few texture and shape features at a current view point. However, it is difficult for previous mathematical model-based methods to estimate effective NV which is because the simple shaped objects have few shape features. Therefore, we focus on the relationship between the pose estimation and NV estimation. When the pose estimation is more accurate, the NV estimation is more accurate. Therefore, we develop a new pose estimation NN that estimates NV simultaneously. Experimental results showed that our NV estimation realized a pose estimation success rate 77.3\%, which was 7.4pt higher than the mathematical model-based NV calculation did. Moreover, we verified that the robot using our method displayed 84.2\% of products.

It updated its homepage to add personalized recommendations for each user.The webpage update is part of a larger site overhaul, called its "structured data" initiative, which involves standardizing data related to product display. This has allowed eBay to run AI algorithms more easily, helping it improve product search and recommendations. Last month, it debuted Group Listings, which organizes search results by product item, rather than displaying each seller's product listing. For example, if a shopper searches for Lego Xbox 360 games, the results will be grouped by game, with a hyperlink displaying the number of sellers offering each game. Once clicked, the hyperlink will show consumers all the listings for a particular game.

Retailers are looking towards artificial intelligence (AI) such as image recognition technologies to help enhance sales staff productivity as well as make them be more competitive against their peers. Alexander Laugomer, project manager digital merchandising at consumer and industrial goods firm Henkel, says: "The major benefit of the AI technology is that it not only provides us with information on our own and our competitors' products, but it also gives us an actionable report straight to our mobile devices. "This allows our sales reps to improve our brands' situation in-store there and then, without the time-consuming task of manually compiling data." Henkel outsources this function to retail image-recognition firm Trax. The technology works by being able to recognise more than eight million images on a shelf.