Wal-Mart Patents a Blockchain Digital Currency

Wal-mart has already experimented with the underlying tech for produce tracking.   Is this beyond that? Or an extension of distributed ledger?  Intriguing all around.

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DIGITAL CURRENCY VIA BLOCKCHAIN   (Wal-Mart Patent description)

Abstract
A method include: generating one digital currency unit by tying the one digital currency unit to a regular currency; storing information of the one digital currency unit into a block of a blockchain; buying or paying the one digital currency unit; determining whether restrictions are applied to the one digital currency unit by referring to one or more documents associated with the one digital currency; recording the determination in a block of the blockchain; overlaying the one digital currency unit with customer purchase history; calculating savings based on the one digital currency unit again naked forecast; applying the savings to customer purchases; using the one digital currency unit for accepted goods or services with the saving if the one digital currency unit is restricted; using the one digital currency unit for any goods or services with the saving if the one digital currency unit is unrestricted; and storing the one digital currency into a digital currency reserve. .... " 

Gartner speculates on this and other related efforts:

Libra and Walmart “Blockchain” Tokens: Financial or Walled Garden Inclusion?   by cuzureau  

" ...... Walmart has been active in providing alternative payment and account solutions to underbanked, such as prepaid accounts. However mentioning financial inclusion is an opportunity for Walmart to move the debate toward the fees charged by banks and card networks. A Walmart token would reduce the cost of payment acceptance (by canceling merchant service charge since payments will be “on-us”).

In theory some of the savings generated could be transferred to the customer, and for example encourage the customer to save more (via rewards or higher interest rates on deposits). But clearly this will demand that Walmart lacks a banking license and they failed to acquire one in the past4. And this would be needed to deliver impactful banking services to unbanked and underbanked. That said, could a digital wallet containing Walmart tokens and receiving reward tokens at the end of given period be considered by the regulator as a deposit account? ..... "

Wal-Mart right about AR being a Sure Thing?

In RetailWire. With an interesting, ongoing discussion.  Do we have ubiquity of AR coming? Replacing smartphones in five years?

Is Walmart’s innovation leader right that the AR revolution is a sure thing?   by Matthew Stern

Pokémon Go may have come and gone, but big names in the retail world are making serious investments in the future of augmented reality (AR) and believe that mass adoption of the technology is soon forthcoming. That was the main takeaway from a session last week at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition in Chicago given by Imran Ansani, principal manager of innovation at Walmart Labs.

“Earlier this week Apple had their worldwide developer’s conference,” Mr. Ansani said. “The big revelation was not some new iPad or a Mac Book Pro or anything fancy like that. It was [an augmented reality developer’s kit] called the ARKit. That kind of gives you an understanding of how important augmented reality is to some of these bigger players, and what we can start expecting to see in the future.”

Despite the current lack of a “killer app” or point of critical mass, Mr. Ansani sees AR as reaching ubiquity in the next five years. In fact, he believes the smartphone will become obsolete in favor of AR-enabled devices that allow people to interact with computers in a “more natural” way.  ... " 

See recent article on ubiquity of AR. 

Wal-Mart Out Sources

Fascinating behind the scenes look.   Note how this takes information and data closer to the business process.      In Infoq:

" ...  has open-sourced OneOps, a cross-cloud deployment and orchestration platform. OneOps abstracts away the differences between cloud platforms and provides the tools to provision, manage and orchestrate applications.

Applications developed on top of OneOps can be moved between clouds to avoid vendor lock-in or take advantage of differences in pricing or performance. Applications can also be distributed across multiple clouds to help improve resilience, to adapt to and handle large spikes in workload, or for disaster recovery and mitigation scenarios. Enterprises transitioning to a public cloud from on-premise infrastructure can take advantage of OneOps to operate in hybrid mode and maintain independence from any particular cloud provider. ... " 

Wal-Mart Using Retail Analytics

No details, but a good strategy piece on applications of Wal-Mart analytics

Walmart: Harvesting Value from Big Data with Hadoop & NoSQL
by Ellen Friedman

 " .... The overall goal is to optimize the shopping experience of Walmart customers while in the store, browsing a website or through mobile devices when they are in motion. The solution has involved redesigning global websites and building innovative applications that personalize customer experience while increasing the efficiency of logistics. What is needed to do this is a large scale system that gives internal customers real time access to data collected from a wide range of sources and centralized for more effective use. That’s where Hadoop and NoSQL technologies come in.

Developers for Walmart have built a variety of innovative applications, including personalized search and targeted recommendations. One useful application is a savings catcher that lets customers scan receipts to see whether they have the best price – if not, an adjustment is made in order to meet the Walmart promise.  Another push has been to “mobilize the store”. Each store has its own layout that requires up-to-date information about every item in terms of availability and location. The aim is to bring all this to mobile applications, making shopping easier for Walmart customers. ... " 

Wal-Mart Readies a Shopping Assistant

Wal-Mart preps an SMS text based virtual shopping assistant called Simple Text.  Based on what I have read it is unclear how much Cognitive technology is being used.    Discussion in retailwire.  An additional piece in FierceRetail.  See also our continuing group discussion in the CSIG: "The Surge of Digital Assistants".    See also, a list of other intelligent personal assistants. 

Walmart Labs Buys Luvocracy

In RetailWire:  " ... Yesterday, Walmart Labs announced it had acquired Luvocracy, an online community that helps members find products based on the recommendations of family, friends and other influencers. Members can then make purchases without leaving the site. What makes this Walmart Labs' purchase different is that it promptly shut down Luvocracy to the public after the deal was announced (terms of which not made public). ... " 

Expansion of Wal-Mart Labs

On expansions of Wal-Mart Labs.   I like to think that our many conversations with Wla-Mart led to some of the ideas and directions seen here. " .... One of the major projects this team is developing is our global platform, one unified platform designed to drive continuous growth and innovation for the eCommerce sites we operate for Walmart around the world. It’s already rolling out to Walmart.com and Samsclub.com in the U.S. and to ASDA, our brand in the UK. ... " 

Wal-Mart Labs and Yumprint

A recent post on YumPrint made me look at the Wal-Mart Labs site.   Well worth a follow by those interested in retail technology.  I visited their labs a number of times, and they mine.  Very impressive.  .. Worth a look and follow at their site devoted to:  " ... Read about how we’re innovating the way our customers shop. ... " 

Facebook and Wal-Mart on Facial Recognition

In Adage:   Piece on the interests of retailers and the social media on facial recognition.  Not very surprising, given recent research in this domain.   " ... Facebook, Walmart to Help Write Rules On Facial Recognition Technology ... Retailers and Advertisers Hope to Use the Tech to Identify Consumers ... Facebook, Walmart, and other companies planning to use facial-recognition scans for security or tailored sales pitches will help write rules for how images and online profiles can be used. ... " 

Wal-Mart to Speed its Site

Wal-Mart labs has acquired a startup to speed its web site operation.   More serious site improvements are being integrated by Wal-Mart, emphasizing mobile platforms.  " ... Walmart’s Silicon Valley innovation lab dubbed @WalmartLabs today announced it has acquired Torbit, a cloud-based website acceleration service. The retailer already plans to use Torbit’s site optimization technology to improve performance across desktops, tablets, and mobile phones. ... " 

Wal-Mart Labs Buys Analytics

Have not heard much from WM labs of late, but these acquisitions are interesting.  " ... Walmart, via its Silicon Valley innovation lab @WalmartLabs, has made another acquisition today, continuing its shopping spree. The company is announcing that predictive intelligence startup Inkiru will be joining Walmart Labs to accelerate the retail giant’s analytics capabilities. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.  Inkiru’s platform is an active learning system that combines predictive intelligence, data abalytics and a decision engine to influence and determine customer interactions. Benefits to using Inkiru include being able to reduce fraud, improve customer segmentation and targeting, and more. .. " 

Wal-Mart Labs and Social Shopping

In ReadWriteWeb:     Another look at Wal-Mart Labs. I like to think that they were inspired somewhat by our work.    " ... “Transaction data often works, but it often fails, in large part because it’s so narrowly focused,” said Robert Yau, the director of project management for @WalmartLabs, the retailer's social strategy division. “With the growth of social media, we have more data points we can use to better target recommendations.” ... '