Shopping with Watson

Over the past decade and a half, successful web retailers have been able to tailor their

marketing toward the individual consumer, providing a level of personalization all shoppers—both offline and on—have come to expect as standard across the industry.

Shoppers have come to expect the tailored marketing that algorithms can deliver to them when shopping online in physical stores. However, that kind of personalization is only possible with sales staff that knows the customer and the merchandise very well. Even in the e-commerce space, customers often are frustrated by an overwhelming number of irrelevant search results that steers them away from their intended purchase. 

read more in Using targeted marketing to improve the shopping experience

Software a food bank can bank on

We've recently come off the holiday season—a time when most people are more likely to be charitable. While that's a boon for charities in general, it does create headaches for organizations like Second Harvest, which can be inundated with food donations in a relatively short span of time.

Some of the food donations—particularly cans and boxes of dry goods—can be kept for quite a while and distributed at times when donations are lighter. But some of the food is near the end of its shelf life, so it must be identified quickly so that it be given to people before it spoils. That's where accurate real-time tracking can make all the difference.

- Read more at A Food Bank Banks on Logistics Software

Security at the Core and More

We're growing more connected every day. In fact, Gartner's latestforecast says that in 2016, we'll see 6.4 billion connected things, and that number will to jump to 20.8 billion by 2020. While all these points of connection and data in transit hold great potential for business applications, they also open up new security challenges.

To get some insight into the direction security is taking in 2016 and beyond, I checked in with Stephane Ibos, co-founder and CEO at Maestrano, a cloud-based platform that provides enterprise applications like data sharing, dashboards, guided tutorials and more.

Ibos believes that the cloud is proving itself as a secure environment for business but that the risks of the Internet of Things (IoT) are only starting to come to light. Securing those many points of data transfer will require innovative solutions. Based on past experience, he is certain that those innovative solutions will emerge, particularly from agile companies, but there are still challenges to overcome as outlined below.

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Security Innovation & the Shifting Mindset

Supply Chain Transparency to Combat Slavery: the UK's Plan

Most people would make a point of refusing to buy something known to be a product of slave labor. The problem is that sometimes consumers have no way of knowing that, particularly if the items includes a component made from by workers trafficked in and enslaved by the factory. The only way to effectively stop the sale of the products of such labor is to track all the parts used in the supply chain.

Now, the United Kingdom (UK) has set out its own guidelines, titled The Transparency in Supply Chains, etc: A Practical Guide, to help businesses to keep informed about labor sources. The guide help businesses be sure they in compliance of the Modern Slavery Act of 2015.  ...

Rather than government regulating what businesses should do, they rely on the free market forces to have a positive effect. The requirement to publicize what they do or do not do will motivate businesses to do whatever they can to reduce the market for slave labor. In the words of the guide, it would "create a race to the top by encouraging businesses to be transparent about what they are doing, thus increasing competition to drive up standards."

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UK Plans to Use Supply Chain Transparency to Combat Slavery