Artificial Intelligence

Washington, D.C. – Despite all the hype surrounding Apple Pay and other digital wallet solutions, so far consumer response to the digital wallet phenomenon has been one big shrug of the shoulders.

Gallup analysis shows that only 13% of U.S. adults with a smartphone have a digital wallet on their device.

When building and deploying mobile apps, retail and distribution firms have employed a variety of approaches, including custom app builds, cloud-based DIY app builder tools, and in some cases, building their own enterprise app stores. No matter what path is chosen, businesses involved in all aspects of retail are turning their attention to applications that can improve the productivity and efficiency of an increasingly mobile workforce.

Target Corp.’s Bullseye blog has posted a Q&A with the company’s new chief information officer, Mike McNamara. The British native arrived at Target in February 2015, after 15 years with Tesco PLC.

Here is the Bullseye Q&A with McNamara:

Chicago – As grocery shoppers’ lives keep getting busier, Ahold’s online grocery delivery service Peapod keeps trying to make shopping easier.

Peapod has completely redesigned its mobile and tablet app, with larger, high-resolution photos and a host of new features designed to streamline and simplify online shopping.

West Coast regional grocer Haggen Food and Pharmacy has a new omnichannel partner to help drive growth.

The retailer has selected Unata to help implement customer loyalty and other initiatives to allow for more personalized marketing across Haggen’s channels including online, mobile and in-store.

 As grocery shoppers’ lives keep getting busier, Ahold’s online grocery delivery service Peapod keeps trying to make shopping easier.

New York -- Construction has just started on Facebook’s new data center, but the massive facility already has its own Facebook page.

The world’s largest social network announced that construction has started on its fifth data center, which will be powered by wind. The new center is located in Fort Worth, Texas, and joins Facebook’s four existing data hubs in Oregon, Iowa, North Carolina, and Sweden.

A harried mother in the baking aisle can’t find lemongrass spice. A teenager in the junior department can’t decide which T-shirt to buy. A family in sporting goods is disappointed that the tent for their camping trip appears to be out of stock.

Bangalore, India – Image is important, and that extends to mobile commerce. Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart is recognizing the importance of image for its mobile shoppers by rolling out image search on its mobile app, using ViSenze technology for visual search and image recognition.

The newly introduced image search allows users to upload photos of fashion items and find similar products in terms of color, pattern or style inside the Flipkart merchandise database. This eliminates keyword searches, simplifying the search process.