Artificial Intelligence

Shelfbucks, a leading iBeacon promotion platform for retail stores, has appointed retail industry veteran Bill Martin, founder of ShopperTrak, as chairman of its board of directors.

Martin will oversee Shelfbucks' growth in the retail sector, guiding the company's strategic planning, operations and marketing efforts.

London -- British grocery giant Tesco is seeking to improve the customer checkout experience by piloting a new, high-speed retail checkout solution from NCR Corp. at its Tesco Extra 24-hour store in Lincoln, U.K. The solution uses innovative imaging technology from Datalogic that automatically finds the barcode on any side of the product without the need to orient the item on the conveyor belt. It is capable of scanning up to 60 items per minute, greatly speeding the transaction.

Dedham, Mass. – Reflexis Systems Inc. is developing an application made with IBM Watson called Reflexis StorePulse that will issue alerts and tasks to regional and local store managers, based on local event and weather information, among other data, to plan their locations accordingly. The application is aimed at helping to maximize sales by ensuring each store has its finger on the local pulse.

Columbia, Md. – Micros Systems Inc. is introducing two solutions designed to allow retail and hospitality staff members to perform multiple activities from one device. The Micros MTablet E-Series operates on Microsoft Windows 8.1 Embedded Industry Pro in eight- and 11-inch versions, with the 11-inch version fully compatible with the Micros MStation base, providing staff the flexibility to be mobile or use it as a workstation option with full peripheral connectivity.

Optional sleeves for either MTablet size facilitate secure payment on the device.

Woodland Hills, Calif. — E-commerce and smartphones are re-shaping brick-and-mortar shopping center industry. In recognition of that trend, NewMark Merrill Cos. has launched BrightStreet Ventures, a technology affiliate focused on developing new technology platforms.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association and several of America's most recognized retail brands have launched the Retail Cyber Intelligence Sharing Center.

The R-CISC is an independent organization, the centerpiece of which is a Retail Information Sharing and Analysis Center. Among those companies participating with and supportive of the R-CISC are American Eagle Outfitters, Gap, J. C. Penney, Lowe's Companies, Nike, Safeway, Target, VF Corp. and Walgreens.  

Merrillville, Ind. – Consumer buying club franchisor DrectBuy and eInfochips are collaborating for a business intelligence (BI) collaboration solution that integrates data from warehouse clubs and the DirectBuy e-commerce portal. The solution drives consumer behavior with an enhanced shopping experience, and also enables analytics for data-driven decision making.

Austin, Texas - Compare Metrics, a provider of adaptive commerce navigation and discovery tools, has secured $3.8 million in follow-on financing. The financing is led by Austin Ventures with additional funding by existing investors Julie Allegro of Allegro Venture Partners, Bob Greene of Contour Ventures, Capital Factory, Mike Maples Jr. of Floodgate, Brett Hurt of Hurt Family Investments and independent investors Ralph Mack and Adam Ross.

New York -- Kohl’s Department Stores and Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions have teamed up with Plug and Play to participate in Plug and Play Retail, an accelerator program that is focused on technologies and teams innovating in the retail industry. (Based in Sunnyvale, California, Plug and Play is a business accelerator that specializes in growing tech startups.)

San Jose, Calif. – Adobe Systems is focusing on new predictive marketing and real-time customer engagement capabilities in several new digital marketing and analytics releases. Marketing Cloud Exchange, a new core service in Adobe Marketing Cloud (AMC), is a new marketplace for pre-built integrations and apps between Adobe solutions and third-party technologies (i.e., Google DDM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Tableau).