Artificial Intelligence

Paris - Most retailers (65%) struggle with getting omnichannel commerce right and cite underperforming technology, changing IT trends and the complex organizational infrastructure as the primary reasons. According to a recent survey from Ipanema Technologies, retailers see the customer-centric experience as including excellent customer service (58%), fast transactions (55%) and interchangeable purchase channels (49%), but only 35% of respondents describe their customer experience as excellent.

Betamax. Zune. Google Plus. These are just a few consumer technology applications that hit the market with a lot of hype and all failed to catch on for the same basic reason. It seems clear that the Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader tablet can now be considered part of this list, although Barnes & Noble has not yet accepted it.

Toronto -- Twitter released a full suite of targeting, creative and measurement tools designed to enable advertisers to promote their mobile apps through the new mobile app promotion (MAP) product.

Smith Micro Software has unveiled its new AniMates mobile messaging app that lets users personalize voice messages with talking characters, scenic backgrounds and voice effects.

Built using Smith Micro's animation software, AniMates offers a wide range of content from digital artists, allowing users to express themselves through multiple personas.

St. Louis -- Schnuck Markets announced that Robert Hardester has been appointed the company's new CIO. Hardester succeeds Mark Zimmerman, who recently announced that he would be leaving the company.

Hardester most recently served as a VP corporate systems at Express Scripts, where he was responsible for application development. He previously held the position of CIO at Furniture Brands International and at General Electric.

San Jose, Calif. – Adobe is releasing Adobe Target Premium, a new personalization solution that leverages predictive technology to deliver automated decisioning. Adobe Target Premium is part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud.

Some of the new features include:

WTI expects July 2014 to trend similar to last year for the U.S. as a whole. The East will trend near normal or cooler than normal, while warmer than normal temperatures will be confined to the West. Overall, the peak of the summer is shaping up to be very similar to 2013 but with a few major timing differences. Unlike 2013, the hotter weather in 2014 will be back-end loaded in the month just as back-to-school shopping begins, which is a negative for early fall apparel, but favorable for clearing out summer inventory.

Aisle411 has unveiled a new functionality that will allow retail shoppers using Google’s Project Tango to search and navigate to product locations while getting rewarded in retail environments in a revolutionary new way.