News

New York -- Twitter is giving over every message ever tweeted to the data scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s famed Media Lab. The social media giant is also giving $10 million (over five years) to fund the new Laboratory for Social Machines (LSM), which will be based at the Media Lab.

San Jose, Calif. – eBay Inc. is reversing course on its previous decision to keep its fast-growing online payments business PayPal as part of the company, and is instead spinning the unit off as a separate publicly traded company. The decision will generate $180 million for activist investor Carl Icahn, who attempted to force eBay to spin off PayPal in a public dispute earlier this year. It comes as the payments sector is heating up and generating increased interest as Apple gets set to launch its Apple Pay mobile payments service.

GameStop’s business unit, the GameStop Technology Institute (GTI), has partnered with AT&T to develop technical capabilities that enable customers to interact seamlessly via their electronic devices with digital product promotional materials located on store shelves and within identified product communication zones.

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is reportedly claiming that comedian Tracy Morgan was not wearing a seat belt when a truck driven by one of its drivers struck a vehicle Morgan was traveling in on the New Jersey Turnpike on June 7, critically injuring Morgan and killing one of his fellow passengers. According to Bloomberg, Wal-Mart said Morgan is partially or fully to blame for his injuries in a filing in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey.

American Express has promoted Neal Sample, currently Enterprise Growth’s chief information officer and chief marketing technologist, to president. He will report to American Express CEO Kenneth I. Chenault and will serve as a member of the company's operating committee.

Sample replaces Dan Schulman, formerly group president of Enterprise Growth, who has resigned his position to become CEO of eBay’s spun-off PayPal business.

Los Angeles - Mobile shopping app provider Ibotta Inc. has partnered with Roximity, a provider of location-based mobile technology to deliver iBeacon-based mobile messages to shoppers within store aisles across the U.S. Roximity will enhance Ibotta’s ability to engage millions of shoppers, by providing detailed and relevant information about leading consumer products and rebates available to them in stores, while they shop.

It’s official. Following a strategic review of the company’s growth strategies and structure, the eBay board has approved a plan to separate the company’s eBay and PayPal businesses into independent publicly traded companies in 2015, subject to customary conditions.

West Des Moines, Iowa - Hy-Vee will deploy the Retail 20/20 exception reporting solution from Agilence Inc. The grocery chain will use the solution to improve operations and reduce shrink.

"While looking for a solution we were keen on finding one that could help us improve our in-store operations, while also making exception reporting a priority," said Darren Baty, senior VP and CIO, Hy-Vee. "After seeing Retail 20/20 in action it became clear that we would be able to reduce shrink and improve our front end with this tool."