Artificial Intelligence

Palo Alto, Calif. – SAP is opening HanaHaus, a new cafe and community workspace that aims to foster a culture of technology innovation, on March 19. Located in Palo Alto, California, HanaHaus seeks to become a central hub of activity that supports new thinking and entrepreneurial energy.

Seattle – Amazon.com is moving forward in the burgeoning arena of the Internet of Things (IoT), but isn’t making a big deal about it. According to multiple media reports, Amazon has purchased 2lemetry, a Denver-based IoT startup, for an undisclosed sum.

2lemetry provides an enterprise platform that can track and manage Web-connected IoT devices, such as autos and appliances. The company was founded in 2011 and has raised $9 million in venture capital funding since that time.
 

Chris Allan was a co-founder of Quantum Retail Technology and now he is the company’s CEO too.

Allan rejoined Quantum, a provider of merchandise optimization and inventory solutions, in late 2014 to lead the company’s retail development and delivery organizations. He will maintain that role in addition to serving as CEO.

Menlo Park, Calif. – Facebook has purchased personalized shopping engine TheFind.com, with the intent of making its ad more relevant to individual users. The social media giant will integrate TheFind’s functionality into its personalized ad-matching capability, rather than keep TheFind operating as a separate entity.

In a message on its homepage, TheFind said some employees will make the transition to Facebook.

Hangzhou, China – Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba Holding Group Inc. wants to change the face of payment. In public comments made at the CeBit technology conference in Hannover, Germany, on March 15, Alibaba chairman Jack Ma said his company’s subsidiary Ant Financial is developing a service called “Smile to Pay” that would let consumers pay for purchases with a facial scan.

Following a recent series of data breaches targeting both large and medium sized retailers, many retailers are investing in technology that will help encrypt credit card data at the point of sale. Although a meaningful way to reduce risk, endpoint encryption is not the silver bullet solution hoped for by many retailers.

Chain Store’s Age’s 51st annual SPECS Conference starts on March 15, at the Sands Expo at the Venetian/Palazzo Hotel, Las Vegas. The conference is focused on store planning/design, equipment, construction and facility services — all areas where technology is beginning to play an increasingly important role. Here are three SPECS sessions where the role of technology will be highlighted:

Nadia Shourabora

Hangzhou, China – Alibaba Holding Group Inc. has reportedly invested $200 million in social messaging platform Snapchat. According to Bloomberg, the investment values the Los Angeles-based company, which allows users to send text and photos that disappear in 10 seconds, at $15 billion.