Lowes Supporting AI Research

Lowes has always been doing interesting things in retail.    Now is supporting AI in                             education.

Lowe's Puts $1.5 Million Into AI Research at UNC Charlotte, By The Charlotte Observer (NC), April 15, 2021

Home improvement retailer Lowe's and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) jointly announced a $1.5-million gift to install an endowed faculty position at the college to lead artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning research.

The gift also will support student research in highly sought-after technology applications, expanding UNCC's pipeline for graduates going to work in various fields.

Lowe's Seemantini Godbole said the company already uses machine-learning-trained AI to help manage its workforce, while similar solutions underpin how Lowe's revises offerings and sales strategies for contractors or professionals.

UNCC's Fatma Mili said Lowe's gift allows students to work directly with the retailer as one of the school's partners to innovate and problem-solve with real-world applications.

Learners also research and gain insights into the social ramifications and ethical issues of rapidly maturing technology.

From The Charlotte Observer (NC)

Google Do it Yourself AI and Voice Kit

For the do it yourself hobbyist, or the clever and inquisitive child, get started with voice and vision AI,   assistants.   $35 and less.  Add AI to your Raspberry Pi.    From MicroCenter.

Do it yourself AI

Google AIY Projects brings do-it-yourself artificial intelligence to your maker projects. With this AIY Voice Kit from Google, you can build a standalone voice recognition system using the Google Assistant or add voice recognition and natural language processing to your Raspberry Pi based projects. The kit includes all of the components needed to assemble the basic kit that works with the Google Assistant SDK as well as on-device voice recognition with TensorFlow.  .... " 

About AI: Build a Face Recognizing Doorbell

I was reminded of how good the O'Reilly sites on AI were by my last post.    Especially about AI and advanced tech topics.      I had somehow missed the piece below, which is a good DIY piece for IOT, AI, voice interfaces and the smart home.   If you build this, you will have a good idea of the challenges involved.   In particular about how you can integrate multiple capabilities and services that are available.  Also a great instructional family project.   Will take a closer look.  Let me know your experiences.

Build a talking, face-recognizing doorbell for about $100  By Lukas Biewald .... 

DIY with Amazon Echo and Raspberry PI: Recognize thousands of people at your door every month, for pennies. .... " 

(Update)  And similarly using Tensorflow   --------------- 

How to build a robot that “sees” with $100 and TensorFlow
Adventures in deep learning, cheap hardware, and object recognition.

By Lukas Biewald September 21, 2016

Gain an intuitive understanding of the concepts and tools for building intelligent systems with "Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow," by Aurélien Géron. ....  

Shop Home Depot with Voice Using Google Home

Another voice based shopping example in place.  I would imagine that DIY interactions could often use visual interaction as well, so assuming the Google Home will provide that?

Home Depot adds ‘voice-activated’ shopping to the mix
By Deena M. Amato-McCoy in Chainstore Age

The nation's largest home improvement retailer is getting in on the voice shopping game.

Home Depot is joining Google Express this fall, a move that will give its customers the ability to shop just by speaking their orders. Google Assistant, the search giant's online shopping platform, resides on Google’s smart speaker Google Home and other smart devices. 

The new option expands Home Depot’s omnichannel strategy, which currently encompasses 2,282 store locations and a digital endless aisle available online and via mobile devices. By adding Google Assistant to the mix, customers will be able to shop via voice on Google Home devices, or the Google Express website or app. ... " 

Adding Intelligence to Ad Delivery

Interesting that the 'Show' version of Alexa, with a screen,  is attracting advertisers.  Consider that this can add intelligence for the consumer with the delivery of adds.   Images are likely expected. Video in particular.   Here am talking about the process that the consumer might need to use the product.   Food recipes are an obvious example.   DIY products and services as well.   Via specifically designed skills to support the message.   A form of engagement with value exchange.   Others?

Scripps, Time Inc. Among Media Companies Starting Shows on Amazon's New Echo  By Garett Sloane in Adage

Streaming video services are sometimes called "over the top" because they skip over the cable box to reach consumers. Now publishers are going over the counter top with original programs for the new Amazon Echo that comes with a screen.

On Wednesday, Scripps Networks Interactive' Food Network and Time Inc.'s People introduced apps for the device, called the Amazon Echo Show.  .... " 

Google Tango Location is Testing at Lowes

Been a long time tester of retail location intelligence solutions.  Now news that Lowes is starting to test Google Tango location intelligence using augmented reality on phones.    Have also mentioned the interior space model building technology that Google is using a number of times here.   Again, impressed with Lowes broad use of new tech.  In CNet:

Google Tango means you'll never get lost in a store again ... Some Lowe's stores are testing out an augmented-reality app that shows the fastest way to get to your items. .... " 

See also Lowe's work on robotics and AR based DIY instruction at the tag below.

How Will Robotics Alter Staffing Models in Retail?

Have been following how robotics will interact with in-store retail personnel.  Lowe's is an interesting example to follow.  How will this alter staffing models, customer engagement and satisfaction?   In Retailwire, with further expert discussion:

Will a new staffing model improve Lowe’s customer service?   by Matthew Stern
Lowe’s Home Improvement recently announced layoffs as a part of an effort to “overhaul its staffing model.” The cuts, which will constitute less than one percent of the total staff, come in the context of a reshuffling of responsibilities, which a source told the Charlotte Observer is meant to provide an increase in “face time with customers.” .... '  

 ... In late 2016, the one-store OSHBot pilot expanded into the release of a branded “LoweBot.” Slated to be rolled out in 11 Lowe’s locations in the San Francisco Bay area over seven months, the LoweBot can, like its predecessor, find products, answer simple customer questions and help manage inventory. 

The Lowe’s Innovation Labs website positions LoweBot as a way to free up staff so that the they can offer customers specialized knowledge and expertise. With that in mind, Lowe’s may be anticipating a future in which robots do the heavy lifting and real-live humans help customers with the higher-level tasks. It has not been announced if or when Lowe’s robotic helper will appear in stores beyond the San Francisco area.  ..... " 

Microsoft and Lowes with Augmented Reality

In the Forrester Blog:  Augmented retailing, it might be called.  Is it enough of an engagement factor to drive sales?  DIY retail has often been mentioned as a place where this would work well.  This appears to be a demonstration of how Microsoft's Hololens might be used commercially in retail.

Virtual Coffee Plantation

Use of VR to market an underlying industry, here coffee growing by Nescafe.  A simple VR method is used:  Cardboard VR, with the assistance of Google.   To explain to the interested consumer the underlying business. Might work better yet to do it for DIY retail where you have to show the shopper they could really do the project that is being suggested.   Will become useful as more consumers are used to virtual reality.  And with the integration of VR methods with operating systems, as is being suggested with MS Hololens

Lowes Innovation Lab uses VR

Increasing use of VR in innovation.   The capabilities have yet to be mainstreamed.

 " ... Lowe’s Innovation Labs (LIL), the innovation hub of Lowe’s Companies Inc has announced its expanding its network into Bangalore, India by launching a startup accelerator program focused on developing technologies including augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), 3D scanning and printing, and robotics.

LIL-Bangalore will be creating an intensive 16-week accelerator program for the startups, after which they will have the opportunity to partner with LIL to deploy their technology in the US. ... " 

Improved Cardboard VR

In Engadget:   Better cardboard.  Works for larger phones.  Also includes the system working on IOS systems.  Easy to try.

" .... Google brought virtual reality to the masses cheaply with Cardboard, a DIY headset announced at last year's I/O conference. Now, the search giant's building upon its 1 million VR viewers with an improved Cardboard headset that fits smartphone screens up to 6 inches. It also incorporates a new top-mounted button that replaces the finicky magnetic ring so that Cardboard works with any phone. ... " 

Intel Edison Chip

In CNet:

"Intel meets its 'makers,' with chips for DIY set and the firms they'll found (Q&A)

The next wave of consumer electronics could come from the maker movement and indie developers. Intel's Edward Ross wants to make the company's chips a key part of that trend. ... 

Behind that effort is Edward Ross, Intel's senior director of inventor platforms, who leads the team working on the Edison and Galileo chips. The Galileo chips were first introduced about a year ago as electronic training wheels for beginners and "makers" -- the growing cadre of do-it-yourselfers who show off their inventions at Maker Faire events. The smaller, more powerful Edison is targeted at "pro-makers" interested in taking their designs a step further with potentially market-ready products. ... "

Service Robots at Lowes

Lowes has always been high on innovation.  Now taking a new retail step forward.  I like in particular the idea of the robots working collaboratively with live associates  A Work force has to be collaborative.

 In Retailwire: 
" .. In late November, the Lowe's-owned Orchard Supply Hardware will be rolling out in-store robotic shopping assistants, which glide around the store interacting with customers and catering to their shopping needs.

A promotional video posted on YouTube shows the sleek robotic shopping assistant, OSHbot, rolling up to individuals in the store and interacting with them, introducing itself by name. OSHbot is shown identifying items that customers place within its view and leading the customer to where similar items can be found. Marco Mascarro CEO and co-Founder of Fellow Robots explains that OSHbot maps out the store as it moves through it, so that it is aware of sales floor reconfigurations and changes in stock. OSHbot is also shown enabling touch-screen searches for items, communicating with customers in multiple languages, and facilitating cross-store video chats with live associates. .. " 

Also more technical details in IEEE.

Lowes Innovation Labs

Formed in 2013.  Lowes Innovation Labs.  I like the strong innovation focus:

" ... Lowe's Innovation Labs brings together uncommon partners to identify and tackle problems consumers face every day. SciFutures, a technology, research and foresight agency that uses science fiction storytelling to solve today's problems, is one of the first LIL start-up collaborations. Together, Lowe's Innovation Labs and SciFutures built the Lowe's Holoroom. ... 

Lowe's Innovation Labs debuted its first concept - the Lowe's Holoroom - on June 11, 2014 at the Exponential Finance conference in New York City. The Holoroom is a home improvement simulator that helps customers break past the barriers of project visualization by creating customized, life size representations of room renovation and refresh projects.  ... "

Lowes Labs and Neuroscience Innovation

Unaware of this work, taking a closer look. Has been a while since hearing of information from Lowes Innovation Labs.

" ... One company that Lowe's Innovation Labs has partnered with is Neurons Inc., a neuromarketing firm that has reduced the cost and increased the speed of this process, alongside delivering actionable results. ... "It has been hugely, hugely successful for inside of Lowe's, and especially inside of Innovation Labs," said Nel.

Tapping into the insights offered by "applied neuroscience" feeds into another core goal of Lowe's Innovation Labs as outlined by Nel: namely, understanding what factors truly impact human behaviour. ... " 

Drones are Joining the Robots in 3D

In IEEE Spectrum:  The drone empire of the future?  Robotics will, more commonly, be operating in 3D.   " ... Small unmanned aerial vehicles are changing from toys into tools, as businesses worldwide awaken to their importance. "At first, investors thought drones were not a market," says Chris Anderson, the former Wired editor and CEO of 3D Robotics, a maker of robotic aircraft. "Then, around nine months ago, they realized they were one." Last year, Anderson’s company got $30 million from venture capitalists. That second round of funding came on top of $6 million raised a year earlier and will help 3D Robotics gear up for the commercial market that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is preparing to allow. And while his company bulks up, Anderson hopes that its roots in the amateur, DIY community will keep it close enough to the market to let it fend off the competition. "Now the question is, will we be the leader?" .. ." 

Demotion in Loyalty Systems

Loyalty systems big flaw.  by Roger Dooley. Our brains in particular do not like demotion.  I remember my own particular example with Delta Airlines. After years of flying globally and reaching the highest platinum levels, I retired, minimized travel, and was kicked down to the lowest 'asphalt' level, it seemed.  Now I am as disloyal to Delta as possible.  Has that demotion process been included in their models of business?  Somehow I don't think so.  The article also talks about minimizing the damage.

Drones and Now Nano satellites: Phonesats

Lots of things are getting small and more mobile.   As presented in Computerworld.    What are the implications of smaller and widely ranging sensors? " ... NASA has launched three smartphones into space in what scientists hope will be the lowest-cost satellites ever tested. The smartphones, Google-HTC Nexus Ones running the Android operating system, launched aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Science Corp.'s Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia on Sunday. The smartphones are encased in 4-inch metal cubes and are hooked up to external lithium-ion battery banks and more powerful radios for sending messages from space. The goal of this mission is to see just how capable these tiny satellites, dubbed PhoneSats, are and whether they can one day serve as the brains of inexpensive, but powerful, satellites. ... "

Staples Prints 3D

In CIO:  Word that the office services store will start to print 3D items.  A method promoting remote manufacture.  This development could lead to the increasing use of the idea for select products.   " ... Customers are expected to create 3D customized parts, prototypes, art objects, architectural models, medical models, tools, machine components, robot parts, or 3D maps, among other purposes....  The Staples 3D models will use the Mcor Technologies IRIS printer, which Staples and Mcor said had the highest color capability of any 3D printer in the industry and the lowest operating cost of any commercial class 3D printer. Mcor also said its 3D printers are the only ones to use ordinary business letter paper as the layering build material.... " 

A View of Sector Inventory Performance

A very informative piece in SC Digest, that surveys inventory turns by sector.  A must for supply chain data trend understanding.  " ... So, let's take an example. Amazon.com had about $48 billion in sales in 2011 (wow). Divided by 365 days in a year, that means the company sold about $131 million worth of stuff per day. It also ended the year with $4.992 billion in inventory. So dividing that inventory number by the $131 million in sales per day means Amazon holds on average inventory equal to about 38 days of its sales. McDonald's, by contrast, manages to hold just about 2 sales day's worth of inventory (I assume franchisers hold much of the inventory in the chain, though the restaurant category has the lowest overall DIO); Goodyear Tire holds 62 day's worth .... "