tagged w/ Retail Technology news
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There is no doubt that the future holds many keys to the age old question: Where can I find that dress that So-n-So was wearing in that movie I saw last night? As technology marches on, you can be rest assured that the movie going experience is headed in the direction of “escape to the movies for retail therapy”. We are talking about a far more sophisticated situation that what we have now, which is that tacky, knock-off, dress company ABS by Jewish Guy that gets featured on The Insider the night after ever big award show. “Wanna look like Jennifer Lopez? Go to Nordstrom Rack“. No, what I am talking about is, you will sit in the theater, bring your iPad complete with the Movie-Shop App. Then select the movie you are watching and literally everything in the move that is not nailed down (sets) will be purchasable right then and there. Hello…welcome to the 21st century. Surely you will miss the best parts of the movie as you chose your preferred color and size…and clearly audience members will hear a lot of, “What did I just miss, what happened, what did she say?” But for shopaholics, it is a small price to pay for being able to be swept away by the grandeur of cinema…and shop for things you really don’t need.
Today’s The New York Times Style features Sex and the City 2, but more importantly, addresses the purchasable items such as Sarah Jessica Parker’s white cocktail dress by Halston Heritage. The interesting tidbit is that SJP is the CEO of Halston Heritage these days too…how coy mozy is that? Look, if that is the future of fashion advertising/marketing…so be it. But as I predicted a while back…when Tom Ford’s A Single Man came out…to be prepared for fashion designers to start really getting heavily into creating movies. Hey, as long as we get great content…who cares? But if we end up watching long ass commercials…then…yikes.
Read more: http://imeanwhat.com/youcallthisfashion/shopping-at-the-movies#ixzz0oOAZjvrIThere is no doubt that the future holds many keys to the age old question: Where can I... more
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Virtual Tech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyUi9iiZ1JU
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Applications that looked amazing on larger multi-touch experiences like Microsoft Surface may have a more affordable consumer-facing counterpart. While the iPad has been widely criticized, many startups are thrilled by its possibilities. In mid-November we featured Paris-based Pearltrees as a new design interface for remapping web information. We spoke to CEO Patrice Lamothe to hear his thoughts on the release of the iPad.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/01/how-the-ipad-is-changing-inter.phpApplications that looked amazing on larger multi-touch experiences like Microsoft... more
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"Think about how much business is predicated on the flow of personal information!" one of the founders predicts. "If you need to add privacy as a foundation under all of that, what is that industry worth? It's huge. Billions and billions and billions."
The year was 2000, and the company was named Zero Knowledge Systems. Even by the standards of that era, it spent staggering sums of money with virtually no sales: ZKS brought in only $400,000 in 2001 in license revenue from its flagship Freedom software, while losing $24 million a year, according to documents filed for its initial public offering. The IPO was canceled two months later, and ZKS abandoned the idea of selling privacy for a profit; under a new name it sells IT services to Internet service providers.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10443575-38.html?tag=rtcol;inTheNewsNow"Think about how much business is predicated on the flow of personal... more
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Apple Inc is investigating media reports that one or more of the company's iPhones have exploded in Europe...
(Heritage, T., & Stonestreet, J., 2009, August 18, par.1)
...a spokesman for Apple Europe Ltd said: "We are aware of these (media) reports and we are waiting to receive the iPhones from the customers.
(Heritage, T., & Stonestreet, J., 2009, August 18, par.7)Apple Inc is investigating media reports that one or more of the company's... more
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NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Circuit City Stores Inc (CC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the No. 2 U.S. consumer electronics retailer, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday just a few weeks before the start of the key holiday shopping season, becoming the largest retailer to file under Chapter 11 this year.
Circuit City fell victim to tighter credit terms from vendors and a loss of market share to Best Buy Co (BBY.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and other rivals.
The retailer and 17 affiliates filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Richmond, Virginia, where it is based.
Circuit City filed one week after saying it would close 155 stores, or more than one-fifth of its retail base, and eliminate 17 percent of its U.S. workforce. It also said it was considering all options to restructure.
In a court filing on Monday, Chief Financial Officer Bruce Besanko said the retailer filed for Chapter 11 in order to continue its turnaround efforts.
"In large part, a Chapter 11 filing is due to three factors, all of which contributed to a liquidity crisis that prevented the company from completing its turnaround goals outside of formal proceedings: erosion of vendor confidence, decreased liquidity and a global economic crisis," Besanko said.
PINCHED SUPPLIERS
Circuit City had lost money in five of the last six quarters. In recent weeks, suppliers pinched by the global credit crunch have tightened terms, sometimes requiring up-front payments before shipping goods.
Larger rival Best Buy, which is based in Minneapolis, has said it might take over stores that distressed rivals close.
Yet a flood of discounted merchandise from liquidating Circuit City stores could hurt Best Buy during this holiday shopping season, said Jefferies & Co analyst Dan Binder.
"Longer term, you've got Best Buy, who's dominant in the sector, taking share. But in the short run it could feel the pain of the liquidation activity," Binder said.
"There's already soft demand out there and probably too much supply. This exacerbates the situation," he added.
According to the filing, Circuit City had $3.4 billion of assets and $2.32 billion of debt as of Aug. 31, and more than 100,000 creditors.
The company has arranged a commitment for debtor-in-possession financing of $1.1 billion, which will allow it to continue to operate during the bankruptcy proceeding.
Among the company's largest unsecured creditors are Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Samsung Electronics Co (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the filing shows. The largest shareholders include HBK Master Fund LP and First Pacific Advisors LLC, according to the filing.
Shares of Circuit City last traded Friday at 25 cents, New York Stock Exchange data shows. They fell to 13 cents in premarket trading. NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Circuit City Stores Inc (CC.N: Quote, Profile, Research,... more
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Google Australia has announced the launch of gDay, a new beta search technology that will search web pages 24 hours before they are created.
Google's new gDay search engine, developed in Google's Sydney engineering centre, can accurately predict future events and internet content.
According to Google, the accuracy of the artificial intelligence Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation (MATE) system is anywhere between 75 per cent and 95 per cent.
"It depends on the Web site in question and the day of the week, for example, our spiders don't work Sundays" a Google spokesperson said.
gDay creates a sophisticated model of what the Internet will look like 24 hours from now - including share price movements, sports results and news events, from Australian Web sites only. Google's testing of gDay has found that results beyond a 24 hour period are statistically unreliable.
"Google's Australian engineers have a history of major technological innovations, from Google Maps to Mapplets to Traffic for Google Maps. Giving humankind the ability to see 24 hours into the future is just a natural progression - of sorts," said Alan Noble, Head of Engineering for Google Australia & New Zealand.
"Maybe you want to see tomorrow's rugby scores. Maybe you want to see tomorrow's lotto numbers. Maybe this is the greatest freakin' product ever."
Users who like a casual flutter and share traders are said to benefit most from gDay. "All past lotto results are publicly available on the web so gDay can extrapolate tomorrow's results, but supplementary numbers and Super66 are still a bit dicey," a Google spokesperson said.
Early trials of gDay, searching 365 days into the future, predicted Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page as joint winners of the 2008 Brownlow Medal.
source:linuxworld.com.au
Google Australia has announced the launch of gDay, a new beta search technology that... more
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According to Haaretz, an Israeli team of computer scientists has developed a software that ranks facial attractiveness of women. Instead of identifying basic facial characteristics, this software has been designed to make aesthetic judgments — after training. The lead researcher said this program ‘constitutes a substantial advance in the development of artificial intelligence.’ It is interesting to note that the researchers focused on women only. Apparently, men’ faces are more difficult to grade. But read more…
Rating women faces
The picture on the left shows how the system is initially calibrated: “Facial coordinates with hair and skin sample regions as represented by the facial feature extractor. Coordinates are used for calculating geometric features and asymmetry. Sample regions are used for extracting color values and smoothness.” (Credit: Amit Kagian, Tel Aviv University, Israel).
This software has been developed by Amit Kagian, a Tel Aviv University (TAU) student, for his master’s thesis in computer science. He has been supervised by Gideon Dror, an associate professor in computer science at the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo and Eytan Ruppin, a TAU professor who manages the Complex Network Systems Lab.
Here are some details about how the software was tested. “In the first stage, 30 human participants were asked to rate from 1-7 the beauty of several dozen pictures. Participants did not say why they ranked certain faces as more beautiful than others. The pictures were then processed and mathematically mapped. ‘We came up with 98 numbers that represent the geometric shape of the face, as well as characteristics like hair color, smoothness of skin and facial symmetry,’ Kagian explains. Participants’ rankings of the pictures were also input in the computer.”
But what was the second stage? “‘We input new pictures of faces into the computer and it graded them based on the information it had.’ Human subjects were then asked to rank the new pictures too. ‘The computer produced impressive results: the rankings were very similar to the rankings people gave.’ According to Kagian, the key achievement is that the computer operated according to certain perceptions of beauty that were not input into it, but learned by processing the data it received.”
According to Haaretz, an Israeli team of computer scientists has developed a... more
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