Artificial Intelligence

San Luis Obispo, Calif. - Shopatron is unveiling its Shopatron Customer Care Suite, which includes a new set of APIs available within the Shopatron Developer applications, and a new customer care interface. Shopatron launched the two platforms to complement its order management technology, allowing retailers to intelligently manage the customer experience anytime, anywhere, and by any authorized user.

E-commerce platform provider FreedomPay has appointed former eBay executive Marc Pereira as VP of technology.

Pereira most recently spent nearly 12 years at eBay Enterprises, serving in several strategic executive roles and has 20 years of e-commerce and technology experience. He will be responsible for overseeing, envisioning and maintaining the company's technology infrastructure, which covers both the development process and the network infrastructure management operations.

The phrase “game-changing” is arguably the most overused in business, but a strategic alliance that IRI president and CEO Andrew Appel announced this week actually fits the bill.

During introductory remarks at IRI’s annual summit, Appel shared with the more than 1,000 attendees gathered in Orland details of a huge data sharing partnership between IRI, comScore and Rentrak.

“Far and away, this is the biggest innovation IRI has done in the past 15 years,” Appel said.

Boise, Idaho -- While the mobile channel continues to grow in importance for retailers, do does their fear of fraudulent attacks and the realization that combating the risk requires specialized tools. Those are some of the findings from the 2nd Annual Mobile Payments and Fraud Survey.

The study, conducted By Kount, The Fraud Practice LLC and CardNotPresent.com, surveyed more than 1,000 merchants around the globe as well as service providers, card associations and issuers. Notable findings from the study include:

The buzz and hype surrounding 3D printing can make it hard to separate fact from fiction, but one thing is for sure: 3D printing has the potential to transform shopper expectations and retail supply chains.

In recent years, the retail industry’s view of technology has expanded from something only the IT department needs to be concerned about to something that other departments, such as marketing and finance, also share an active interest in. But as demonstrated by the speakers lined up for the March 11 Tech Boot Camps at this week’s SPECS conference in Dallas, technology is also a concern of operational departments such as store planning, energy management, construction management, and real estate.

Secure the Perimeter

Plano, Texas – Pizza Hut is planning to pilot interactive tables that allow customers to design their pizzas using a touch-screen table surface that graphically displays different menu options like a tablet. In a short online video, Pizza Hut shows a couple interacting with a tabletop to pick their pizza’s size and ingredients.

Oscar Mayer is giving bacon lovers a reason to wake up early. The brand has unveiled the first-ever iOS device that wakes people up with the smell of bacon. The device, called Wake Up & Smell the Bacon, syncs with the Oscar Mayer Wake Up & Smell the Bacon iPhone app to emit the scent and sound of sizzling bacon when the rooster crows.