Artificial Intelligence

Silicon Valley’s Winchester House confounds visitors from around the world. An eccentric heiress spent decades adding endless rooms and hallways, doors that lead to nowhere, and random structural additions — turning a home into an inscrutable, imposing and meandering oddity.

SAP is setting some big goals for a suite of future integrated digital enterprise technologies. The enterprise technology firm wants to transform the relationships companies have with their customers.

Sephora is offering some colorful store services. The specialty beauty retailer is unveiling two new features of its Color IQ foundation service, which it operates in partnership with Pantone, in all U.S. stores.

These two new complimentary in-store services let customers filter through Pantone’s SkinTone library and determine their most flattering colors from more than 3,500 lipstick shades and more than 400 concealer shades.

Barnes & Noble wants its shoppers to celebrate innovation and creativity by hosting its first ever "Maker Faire."

The nation’s largest retail bookseller has formed a new partnership with Maker Media, publisher of Make: magazine and producer of Maker Faire, to launch the first-ever Mini Maker Faire in stores nationwide. The retailer is asking shoppers to participate at their local Barnes & Noble store the weekend of Nov. 6-8 to share their inventions, ideas and more.

Visual marketing platform provider Olapic, which turns consumer-generated photos and videos into brand assets for use in marketing, is teaming up with a major social network.

Olapic is now part of the Facebook Marketing Partner Program.

Online shoppers looking for a sofa in that perfect shade of leather will enjoy new technology being rolled out by Wayfair.

The leading furniture e-commerce retailer announced that, in partnership with tech solutions provider roOomy, high-resolution image renderings based on 3D product models will be available on DwellStudio and Birch Lane. Now, customers shopping on these sites will be able to experiment with multiple textures and fabrics, and see 360-degree views to find the perfect pieces of furniture for their home.

Today’s customers are firmly in charge of the buying process. The Internet allows them to research products and prices at the click of a button, and in most cases, they are better informed about what’s available in the marketplace than the associates in brick-and-mortar stores. And, the retail environment is more crowded – and less personalized – than ever before.

This year’s annual fall Apple event did not offer retailers anything quite as dramatic as last year’s introduction of Apple Pay and Apple Watch. However, there were still a few announcements with potential impact on the omnichannel landscape.

TV, or Not TV