Artificial Intelligence is becoming commonplace across major industries and retail is no exception.The retail industry is looking for ways to keep up with the times and many companies have started implementing AI technology across the entire product and service cycle – from assembly to post-sale customer service interactions.Major retailers such as Walmart, Sephora, Walgreens, North Face, Uniqlo, West Elm, and Macy’s are using AI to enhance customers’ experiences at their stores while also improving security. AI Applications in Retail While hardware giant Lowe’s uses small robots to give directions and help customers navigate a large hardware store, Walgreens is using technology to track the spread of flu, based on the locations of customers picking up prescriptions so they can alert customers to the flu activity in their area and stock more flu-related products.Another example is makeup company Sephora, which now uses AI technology in many of its stores to scan customers’ faces and help them choose the perfect shade of blush, lipstick, or eyeliner without having to test multiple products.Meanwhile, a Walmart store in New York is becoming the “store of the future” by incorporating the latest AI technology. The store’s smart cameras will have the capability to alert workers when items are out of stock and even let them know when a bunch of bananas has gone bad. Providing a Customizable Retail Experience Artificial intelligence is being used for everything from preparing packages in warehouses to enhancing security to creating a customized experience for consumers.One company that is delivering solutions to retail and security is VSBLTY Groupe Technologies Corp.(CSE:VSBY) (OTC:VSBGF). VSBLTY is at the forefront of making AI work in the retail space, developing innovative facial recognition software and interactive digital screens that will provide retailers with a multitude of AI features.VSBLTY’s VisionCaptor content management system brings interactive messages to any digital screen and provides insights on customer demographics and emotional states, allowing engagement with consumers in real time.By commanding guests’ attention with dynamic digital displays, custom content can be provided based on what the display camera “sees,” while gaining valuable insights in real time. Through engaging digital assets such as animations, photos, videos, and multimedia content, VSBLTY software creates a complete customer experience through digital displays, which can be utilized in transit hubs, entertainment and sports venues, grocery stores, drug stores and, really, any retail environments.What’s more, VSBLTY’s VisionCaptor can be integrated with other technologies, including RSS feeds, QR codes, and Bluetooth.”Using Edge- and/or Cloud-enabled digital display solutions, retailers can now enhance guest experience with proximity-aware, interactive brand messaging triggered by demographic, identity or even sentiment, while simultaneously gaining groundbreaking levels of measurement and actionable insights,” according to the company’s website. Offering Enhanced Security Features VSBLTY has also developed AI solutions that enhance security.VSBLTY Vector is focused on security solutions that combine video screens with facial recognition software and criminal databases in order to identify “persons of interest” or individuals carrying weapons. Cameras are embedded in screens and can identify individuals alone or in crowds more effectively than overhead cameras, and can allow for demographic and emotional recognition as well as facial and object recognition.By teaching computers how to skillfully interpret their surroundings, VSBLTY software can contextualize all of the information about those surroundings and deliver it to the end-user vetted and streamlined for the particular security application.

As the coronavirus pandemic rapidly turned the “new normal” household into hubs for all daily activities, Summer 2020 now means moving parents’ offices, kid’s camps, vacation destinations, and virtually everything under one roof.Although this dynamic could forge family bonds, it can also ignite the already heated stresses and struggles facing many Americans during this difficult time – making optimal home climate control a critical key to keeping their cool as temperatures heat up this season.Recent studies show how our increased togetherness can significantly disrupt domestic bliss. In fact, research suggests that people forced to live in quarantine conditions face a greater risk of anxiety, depression, anger, irritability, insomnia and post-traumatic stress symptoms.And, despite feeling close to their children during the pandemic, 61percent of parents say they have shouted, yelled, or screamed at them at least once over the past two weeks, according to a University of Michigan study. Further, married and engaged couples in quarantine are fighting more, with only 18 percent of surveyed couples reporting satisfaction in communication with their partner, according to a survey conducted by the publication, “The Knot and app Lasting.”When temperatures – and tempers – rise, a dreaded “Family Thermostat War” can ensue. Following are some useful tips to help you save money on utility bills and keep your family cool.With home heating and cooling accounting for nearly half of home energy use and air conditioner energy expenses costing homeowners more than $11 billion a year, small steps can go a long way.* Ease Into Electric: According to Columbia University’s Earth Institute, electric systems are a solution to decarbonize home climate control. Among the most energy-efficient heating and cooling products, electricity-powered ductless mini-split systems, offered by companies including Fujitsu General America, can save as much as 25 percent on your energy bill. Mini-splits use thin copper tubing to pump refrigerant from an outdoor compressor directly into an indoor air-handling unit, where the air is quietly distributed to the interior space.* Get “Smart” About Climate Control: When it comes to smart home temperature control, there are Smart HVAC Systems and Smart Thermostats. Smart HVAC systems have built-in Internet capability and can be controlled directly without additional equipment. Smart Home Thermostats create “smart” systems by enabling remote temperature control via a mobile or Internet-connected device or voice-operated home automation system.* Voice Your Preference: Take control of your comfort. Most HVAC manufacturers offer apps that enable systems to be controlled from anywhere using a mobile device. Voice-control capability uses digital assistants, such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home, to verbally dictate home temperatures. Easily controlling the temperature more closely allows homeowners to be more comfortable and improve energy savings.* Find Your Efficient Comfort Zone: Many of us live in homes designed for bigger families, but have yet to downsize. If you find yourself using a fraction of your home on a regular basis, consider upgrading to a zoned, ducted, or ductless system. That will allow you to save energy heating and cooling spaces where you and your family don’t spend a lot of time. This will multiply savings as you’re not only needing less cooling, but you also gain from a more efficient system in the spaces you do still use.* Try Low-tech Fixes: Simple changes can have a big impact. Try to use heat-producing appliances – stoves, irons and dryers at night or early morning. Switch to LED light bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs – which consume 90 percent more power. Seal air leaks around windows, doors, and places where pipes and wires come through walls. And check existing caulking and weather-stripping for gaps or cracks.Achieving a sense of peaceful co-existence in your increasingly crowded, multi-functional home does not need to make your family members hot under the collar. If a new system is right for you, many Fujitsu systems with the Energy Star rating are more than twice as efficient as the minimum standard set by the government.

The Covid-19 pandemic has driven education for children of all ages from school to home, and often a hybrid of both. As remote learning stretches into the new school year in many areas, parents are worried, with parents of young children especially concerned about writing.More than half of parents of young children (54 percent) say that “writing is the area of greatest concern,” in terms of remote learning, according to a survey conducted by Learning Without Tears (LWT), a company that has been providing writing and other educational materials to parents and teachers for more than 40 years.Parents faced with remote learning want to know how to develop and improve their children’s handwriting without the guidance of a teacher in a classroom setting.”Whether you are employed outside the home, or a stay-at-home parent, remote learning is challenging. Some subjects, like handwriting, are particularly difficult without a teacher’s direct instruction, which creates a lot of angst at home,” says Lana Dugdale, from Southborough, MA, mother of three young kids, including a rising first-grader.LWT is meeting the home-based learning challenges with improved and innovative updates to its classic and proven products.”It’s clear now that too many students were left behind as the country moved to distance learning,” says Terry Nealon, CEO of Learning Without Tears.”During a child’s elementary years, any gap in learning can result in setbacks that impact that student for the rest of his/her life. Learning Without Tears has always focused on improving learning outcomes; we don’t have to accept those gaps.”To enhance remote learning, families can choose from a range both digital and print resources: activity books geared towards various elementary school grades, including books on letters and numbers, printing, and cursive, as well as keyboarding programs. In addition, with sharing materials out and hand sanitizer in, individual manipulative packs for hands-on learning are the ideal solution for single student use in the classroom, or for parents opting for homeschooling in small groups or pods.Need more handwriting resources? There’s an app for that. Designed to help young children learn the correct way to form letters and numbers and to show parents how to support that learning, LWT has launched “Wet, Dry, Try,” for use on an iPad. With over four hours of instruction and technology that identifies individual student needs, the app provides a multisensory approach, with customized audio instructions that give teachers a way to monitor student progress remotely, when they can’t be in school.Learning loss during school shutdown has parents, teachers, and kids worried, stressed, and looking for solutions, and LWT resources are improving this unsettled situation. So teachers can be as effective remotely as they are in the classroom, LWT’s +Live Insights – its platform that brings all of its solutions together for in-school, at-home, and hybrid teaching – facilitates crucial data-driven individualized student instruction, as well as “whole class” gallery approach that was typical of remote teaching in the spring.The only thing certain about back-to-school this year, is its uncertainty. Visit LWTears.com for more information about early education products and resources for families and teachers to weather the new world of remote learning and beyond.

 How many houses have you been outbid on? And if you’re an owner who can’t even get a nibble out of buyers – if some barely even bother stepping inside – are you starting to feel like screaming?Yes, times are tricky for both buyers and sellers.”Rising demand among millennials, full employment, and the strong economy have bumped against limited inventory,” the Washington Post reported, “which fuels price increases.”What to do? Read on for some of the best insider tips.* January and February are the best months to buy. Forget the “experts” who warn you shouldn’t try to time the market. A recent study from NerdWallet shows houses typically cost 8.45 percent less during those two months than in June and August.True, the pickings might be slimmer, given that most sellers list a house in the peak spring or summer seasons. However, not only are you less likely to be up against buyers with wads of cash – they’re probably wintering in the likes of St. Barts – but you’ll also stand to profit from a time-tested truth. “If their home is (still) on the market in fall or winter,” notes the home improvement website BobVila.com, “chances are they’ll be eager to close.”With the median price of homes currently listed in the U.S. at $275,000, that 8.45 percent “discount” translates into a very un-chump change savings of more than $23,000 – and a lot more in pricier cities like San Francisco.Sellers, on the other hand, do best in the first half of May, according to Zillow.com.* Generation Z is quick to buy. We hear so much about Millennials these days, but those born after 1995 caught Zillow’s attention for a very good reason: When they buy, they buy “quickly.”More than two-thirds of those Gen Z buyers spent less than three months on their search, compared to 54 percent of Millennials and less than half of both Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1976) and Baby Boomers.One of the best ways to pique their interest? Smart home features that allow just about anything to be remotely controlled on their phones.* A new roof is a sure-fire way to boost a home’s resale value. A perennial fixture on Remodeling magazine’s annual Cost vs. Value Report, roofs are often the first thing prospective buyers notice even before exiting their cars. And if yours pales in comparison to others up for sale in the area – or worse, looks like something out of “Twister” – that could explain the lack of nibbles.Patsy O’Neill, a sales associate with Sotheby’s in Montclair, New Jersey, has witnessed this effect first-hand.”If your current roof is an eyesore,” she says emphatically, “buyers will be predisposed to find other things they hate about your place. It’s just the way people’s minds work.”Your roof no longer cutting it? You might want to check out the popular Timberline roofing shingle line from GAF (gaf.com), North America’s largest roofing manufacturer, given their look of luxury at affordable prices. An even more upscale choice: the Designer Shingle line from the same company.* Play the online odds. “Studies show that homes with more than six listing photos online are twice as likely to be viewed by buyers,” Trulia.com reports.Of course, that only applies if the house you’re trying to sell is photo-worthy. (See “New Roof” above.) And if it isn’t … well, let’s just say you might want to skip this tip.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic swelled, the ranks of work-from-home employees, freelancing was on the rise as workers across a range of fields sought more flexibility and control over their work lives, enabled by the latest advances in technology. In 2020, there were 59 million people doing freelance work in the United States. This is an increase from 2014, when there were about 53 million people freelancing according to Statista, a leading provider of market and consumer data.
The demonstrated success of working remotely means that independent workers will be key to the future of work, even as many people return to in-person office settings.
To thrive both professionally and personally, independent workers need support and tools to promote their skills and manage their business.
An online platform known as Indy provides these features and more. Indy offers a complete productivity suite that helps independent workers take the management of their businesses to the next level, with tools and guidance for creating contracts, generating invoices, and everything in between. Additionally, their blog, The Independent Worker, is focused on addressing topics of interest to freelancers, ranging from business development to managing burnout.
“We proudly empower today’s ‘Indies’ – including solopreneurs, freelancers, consultants, contractors, microbusinesses and side hustlers – to streamline the most time-consuming parts of operating their businesses. We help them work smarter, get paid faster, and thrive,” says Sebastian Gyr, CEO and co-founder of Indy.
The Indy app offers freelancers a suite of tools designed to help them own three key aspects of their business: :
– Marketing. Indy provides templates for proposals, project briefs, and profiles to help you organize your pitches, and showcase your unique skills.
– Organization. Time tracker and task management tools help you keep everything organized, and Indy also offers a chat feature that freelancers can use for quick communication with clients.
– Business management. Templates for legally-binding contracts and non-disclosure agreements take a lot of the effort and stress out of contract creation, so you can get right to work and invoicing tools will let you quickly and easily send highly professional invoices to the client directly to be paid either electronically or the old-fashioned way – via a check in the mail.
Indy takes pride in empowering an inclusive and diverse community of freelancers, including the LGBTQ community, Black Americans, BIPOC, and workers with disabilities, who are often underserved in the workplace despite the recent rise in equity initiatives. Leaning into these tenets, Indy recently launched a new, digital series called ‘Miss Independent’ featuring a Black drag queen who offers short videos commenting on freelancing and the freelancing life.
“We’re spotlighting what’s currently missing for today’s virtual workforce and are boldly embracing the opportunity to drive conversations and narratives around equitable pay, diversity, and inclusion, by enabling the success of all workers, especially those from underserved communities,” according to the company.
“We celebrate the uniqueness of those human beings that we serve by providing the products, services, space, and the megaphone for them to be their authentic selves, shine, and thrive.”
Visit weareindy.com for more information and to create an account for free.

Creating a financial planner workforce that reflects the changing demographics of wealth in the United States is important for ensuring the long-term success of the profession and the ability of Americans to access the advice they need.In recent years, significant progress has been made in attracting more women, people of color, and young individuals into the field. The number of CFP® professionals under age 30 has increased by 83% since 2016; 6,032 new women have joined the ranks of CFP® professionals, bringing the total to 20,632; and the number of Black and Latino CFP® professionals , including those who self-identified as biracial Black and Latino, grew to 3,688 in 2020.Recruiting, however, is just one piece of the puzzle.Creating a more diverse and sustainable workforce also requires cultivating an environment in which financial planners want to build a career.”As awareness of the financial planning profession continues to spread and we attract more ethically and racially diverse talent, the challenge continues to be retaining and supporting these thriving professionals,” explains Rianka Dorsainvil, CFP®, Co-CEO of 2050 Wealth Partners.In part, such support means helping financial planners feel comfortable in the field and recognize the unique skills and perspectives they bring.”Even though I didn’t necessarily look like most everyone else in the profession, I wish I realized then the power of being able to connect with someone who shares my background,” says Marguerita Cheng, CFP®, CEO of Blue Ocean Global Wealth.”There are many people from different walks of life who could benefit from the services provided by a financial planner. And the personality traits that might appeal to one person or demographic, may not resonate quite as well with women or people of color,” Cheng says.Jeanne Fisher, CFP®, CPFA, with Strategic Retirement Partners, notes that this is why financial planners need to harness their differences.”Being a woman can be an advantage — not a disadvantage. Embrace it. Don’t try to ‘fit in with the guys.’ Our different approach, and the fact that we are naturally more empathetic, works in our favor,” she says.Early in her career, Dorsainvil says she felt that “in order to fit in I needed to code-switch. I could not be my authentic self.” Not only was it exhausting to constantly change mannerisms or appearance to feel like she belonged with a specific audience, Dorsainvil says doing so also ignored the fact that no matter where you come from, what you look like, how you grew up or your circumstances, you can be successful in this profession for who you are and what you bring to the table.Dorsainvil adds that overcoming that mindset and the barriers that keep women and people of color from entering or staying in the profession requires allies in the financial advisory space to act in solidarity with marginalized groups and unlearn what they think they know about race and ethnicity.Phuong Luong, CFP®, a financial planner with Just Wealth, LLC, explains that this means having difficult conversations.The profession “cannot truly be inclusive until we see why we’ve been exclusive for so long,” she says, adding that financial planning as a whole is in a unique and privileged position to facilitate the reckoning that will ultimately help people become the most honest and realized versions of themselves”If we get comfortable talking about race, imagine what we could do.”To learn more from diversity, equity and inclusion thought leaders and best practices visit www.CFP.net and plan to attend the 4th Annual Diversity Summit, taking place virtually November 17-18.