Google, Inc.

A new four-legged friend is roaming Boston neighborhoods, and it can bring shoppers more than their newspaper or slippers.   Spot, a four-legged, dog-like robot from Boston Dynamics, is programmed to deliver packages to consumers’ front doors, according to ReCode.  

Google hopes its new visual search tools will become a new accessory for its fashion shoppers.    To assist customers eager to buy merchandise featured in online lifestyle images, Google introduced two new mobile image-based search tools this week that will help customers locate their desired pieces more easily.   

  When it comes for help in stores, shoppers are increasingly going mobile.   That is one of the findings of a survey by Salsify, a product content management platform for distributed commerce, which revaled that 77%  of shoppers use a mobile device while shopping in store.  This compares to just 35%  of shoppers who opt to speak to a salesperson if they have questions about a product.  

Williams-Sonoma is throwing its hat into the 3D app ring.   Later this month, the chain’s Pottery Barn banner will introduce 3D Room View. The augmented reality mobile app, which is based on Google’s AR technology Tango, enables shoppers using Tango-enabled smartphones to “virtually” place Pottery Barn merchandise in any of their rooms. The goal: to enable shoppers to see how products look and fit with their existing furniture and decor — or in an empty room.   

Lowe’s is making it even easier for in-store shoppers to locate home improvement necessities.   By tapping the power of augmented reality, the home improvement retailer introduced its Lowe's Vision: In-Store Navigation app. Called the first retail application of indoor mapping using augmented reality, the app is designed to simplify the home improvement shopping experience.   

Online reviews have boomed in recent years. Once just another step in the customer decision-making process, they are now a pervasive part of daily life.  

Pottery Barn customers in the San Francisco area will soon be able to see how a product will look in their home before they buy it.   The retailer, a division of Williams-Sonoma, will launch its first smartphone augmented reality app later this month. Called 3D Room View, the app is powered by Tango technology from Google. (It can be used only on Tango enabled smartphones.)   

Diane K. Lettelleir, senior managing counsel of JCPenney Corp., discusses why retailers can’t wait for the government to solve the patent troll problem in the commentary below:    JCPenney and numerous other retailers have been hunted for the last decade by patent trolls that aggressively file suits based on overly broad claims in patents against related but distinct technologies. JCPenney alone has endured dozens of patent troll lawsuits over this period.