Archive

The augmented reality space continues to evolve. Device makers such as Bosch, Panasonic, Huawei and Pico are introducing significantly smaller and more powerful smart glasses and AR headsets, such as those demonstrated last month at CES 2020, one of the country's largest consumer technology conferen...

The European Commission has walloped Google unit with a record $2.7 billion for giving its own shopping comparison site preference above smaller competitors, and thus abusing its dominant position as a search engine. Google must end the conduct within 90 days or face penalties of 5 percent of its av...

Just when you thought Raspberry Pi couldn't be knocked from its market-leading perch, along comes Asus with a rival device that may give the Pi a run for its relatively little money. Asus just launched its own low-cost computer, the Tinker Board, which is being sold in the UK and continental Europe ...

Google and its parent company Alphabet are facing new charges in the European Commission's ongoing investigation of allegations that Google's comparison shopping and online advertising platforms violated antitrust laws. The EC on Thursday alleged that Google had abused its dominant position by syste...

Like many, I have a love-hate relationship with warehouse clubs like Costco, Sam's Club and BJ's. I've criticized them several times over the years, but it's worth noting that some of these clubs have been improving. Others not so much. I have some ideas about what these companies are doing right an...

Google last week responded to the European Commission's statement of objections regarding its search practices by rejecting outright the Europeans' argument that its innovations were anticompetitive. The SO, published in April, doesn't support the claim that the company's displays of paid ads divert...

The European Commission on Wednesday began official antitrust proceedings against Google, alleging abuses of its dominance in Internet search. The EC further opened a probe into Google's Android mobile operating system. In a Statement of Objections sent to Google, the EC notes that its preliminary i...

Google is working on its own ride-hailing service to compete with Uber, according to a Bloomberg report. Meanwhile, Uber has announced a strategic partnership with Carnegie Mellon University that will see the creation of the Uber Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh, Pa., that will focus on de...

A short while ago, few people had heard of omni-channel commerce, also known as omni-channel retailing. Today, however, if you were to ask most retail executives, you'd no doubt find that they are well-informed about the subject. In fact, Walmart is currently quite immersed in this relatively new ph...

Can I be everywhere my customers want to shop? The good news is that this rhetorical question is not all that far-fetched any longer. In its day, the Sears catalog revolutionized the consumer shopping experience and ruled the market. Decades later, it has been rendered obsolete by the ultimate, inno...

Holiday shopping this year will take place on multiple channels, with many shoppers doing research and buying online or on mobile devices. That's according to Deloitte's 2012 Annual Holiday Survey, which found that shoppers who use multiple channels plan to spend more money than retail shoppers. Omn...

Google is nixing its free product search model, opting instead to charge merchants and retailers to appear in Google product search listings. Currently, retailers can provide information about their products and then add them to the search listings for free, where they are ranked by popularity and p...

2010 saw many large retailers experiment with online video. According to eMarketer, nearly three quarters of all U.S. retailers featured video on their sites in Q4 of 2010, which is up 55 percent from a year earlier. They created homepage videos, how-to videos and select product videos on their webs...

Retailers aren't investing seriously in mobile platforms right now, and who can blame them? Despite the lofty percentage growth cited by mobile shopping advocates, retailers privately lament anemic mobile conversion rates and report total revenue figures that can kindly be described as "modest." En...