Artificial Intelligence

Consumers who love chocolate may have been waiting for the day someone unveiled a chocolate 3-D printer. Well, thanks to Hershey Co., that day has come.

The company has announced the debut of its 3-D Chocolate Candy Printing exhibit at Hershey’s Chocolate World in Hershey, Pa. Consumers who visit the store will have the opportunity to interact with Hershey scientists and the breakthrough technology.

Piccing, a “social-shopping” platform, has raised $3.62 million from undisclosed investors, the company announced.

The company’s web and iOS app lets users upload or bookmark images — the latter, Pinterest-style — wherein they can add up to five hotspots tied to items found in each image, thereby helping to make those images “shoppable.”

Users browsing or searching via the platform can click on any image’s hotspots — dubbed “piccs” — to buy the product or see similar items.

By Jeff Seabloom, Alsbridge   At one time, IT service providers could demonstrate their retail industry expertise by showing a PowerPoint slide of customer logos. That’s no longer sufficient.   

TGI Fridays has been getting a lot of attention for its holiday “Mobile Mistletoe” promotion, and not all of it has been for the right reasons. While Mobile Mistletoe is a great concept in omnichannel marketing and customer engagement, some flaws in the actual execution suggest TGI Fridays should have spent more time refining it before launch.  

Shoppers at Rite Aid stores in New York and Los Angeles will soon get a dose of 3-D along with their prescriptions as the retailer rolls out the first of its high-tech customer kiosks at 200 retail locations.

VeriFone and First Data are teaming up to help U.S. merchants reduce their exposure to data breaches and expedite merchant acceptance of EMV-enabled credit and debit cards.

Large-scale theft of consumer payment data from merchants’ integrated point-of-sale (POS) systems is among the biggest challenges facing the payments industry.

New York – Macy’s Inc. is exclusively offering a line of high-tech-enabled wallets, briefcases and handbags from Royce Leather. The designer collection features the Royce Leather Freedom Briefcase; a security bag with DNA based fingerprint technology that enables a single user to access the bag.  

Consumers looking to keep a tight grip on their most private possessions may want to check out a new high-tech collection launching at Macy's.

The store will be selling Royce Leather handbags, wallets and briefcases integrated with fingerprint technology, RFID blocking technology, and GPS technology. In particular, the Royce Leather Freedom Briefcase will be the world's first security bag with DNA-based fingerprint technology. The briefcase enables a single user to access the bag, demonstrating the ultimate in personal and travel security.

GAINESVILLE, Fla - More than 40 major retail chains, including The Home Depot, Walmart, Kroger and Target, formed a specialized research council to facilitate the use of science to curtail theft and violence. As part of this effort, A specialized University of Florida research team has been formed to interviews offenders, analyzes large datasets, and conducts field experiments to adapt and devise new crime control methods and technologies.