Artificial Intelligence

Toronto -- Canadian Tire has opened a digital development lab in Communitech, a start-up incubator that is home to some 100 startups and small businesses along with such “strategics” partner companies as Google Inc. and Intel Corp.
 
Communitech supports tech companies at all stages of their growth and development in the commercialization of innovative technologies.

BOSTON — PYMNTS.com, a news website serving the payments industry, released its list of winners for the 2013 PYMNTS Innovator Awards. Winners were chosen across sixteen categories by a panel of judges with deep and practical expertise in payments and payments innovation. The top finalists in each category were given an award at the PYMNTS.com Innovator Awards Dinner held this year on March 21 at Annenberg Hall on the Harvard University Campus as part of The Innovation Project. B.J.

Samsung Electronics America announced that its 2013 TVs will begin shipping this month in the United States, beginning with the LED 8000-series and the Plasma 8500-series.

ServiceSource, a provider of recurring revenue management, has announced that Robert Ashe, a proven industry software CEO at Cognos and former IBM executive, has joined its board of directors. Ashe’s appointment adds key talent to continue building leading edge functionality into Renew OnDemand, the world's only cloud application designed to increase recurring revenue, and to rapidly deploy customers on this new SaaS platform.

SAN FRANCISCO and NEW ORLEANS — InsideView, a provider of customer intelligence, announced that one year after introducing a multi-faceted partnership with Microsoft to integrate InsideView's curated content into Microsoft Dynamics CRM, demand for the joint solution has exceeded expectations, and has provided an opportunity for Microsoft Dynamics channel partners to bring additional value to their CRM customers.

Paul Loux

Senior VP Store Design, Sephora Americas

HEADQUARTERS San Francisco

TYPE OF BUSINESS Beauty and fragrance retailer

NUMBER OF STORES 1,600 global locations, including 325 stores in North America and 386 in-store shops in J.C. Penney

Beauty and cosmetics retailer Sephora is ignited not only by its highly trained cast of associates and smart, forward-thinking approach to in-store digital, but also by the man behind the black, white and red store design.

PHILADELPHIA — Monetate, a technology solution provider that allows online marketers to leverage Big Data to create personalized online customer experiences, has announced the addition of two senior executives to its leadership team. John Healy joined as chief operating officer and David Stetson was named chief financial officer. 

Jim Crowcroft, VP market development, TCP Inc., Aurora, Ohio, [email protected].

With 'intelligent design' emerging as yet another buzz phrase in an industry full of them, Chain Store Age talked with Jim Crowcroft about how TCP incorporates smart design into its lighting products and projects, as well as what hot lighting trends he is seeing for 2013.

What do you see as the main elements of intelligent lighting design?