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Walmart's latest acquisition shows it's serious about VR
Walmart isn't just interested in bringing tech into its stores -- it might change how you shop at home as well. The company has acquired a virtual reality startup, Spatialand, to form the cornerstone of its VR initiatives both in stores and out. The team had already been working with Walmart's Store No. 8 tech incubator and will be folded into that group as part of a new VR company, with incubator head Katie Finnegan serving as the VR firm's interim chief. But just what will this company be working on, exactly?
Walmart is testing personal shopping and cashier-free stores
Walmart's quest to counter Amazon at every turn has taken its next logical step: helping you avoid as much human interaction as possible. Recode has learned that Walmart has started testing a pair of services that cut the usual retail staff out of the equation. The first, from a new Code Eight subsidiary, is a personal shopping service for the "high net worth urban consumer" that uses text messages to get recommendations and make purchases -- you can even send a photo to show what you want. Send some texts and you'll get typical household items in 24 hours, and anything else within 2 business days. There would eventually be a membership fee, although testers are using it at no cost.
Walmart is opening its own tech incubator in Silicon Valley
Like Target and Amazon, Walmart is trying to figure out what the future of retail looks like. The company already bought up startups like Jet.com and clothing store ModCloth to better compete online, but Walmart's next move will invest some of its sizable coffers directly in the next generation of retail technology startups through its own tech incubator. According to Jet.com founder and Walmart's CEO of e-commerce Marc Lore, who announced the project at this year's Shoptalk conference, the group will be called "Store No. 8" and will focus on investing in companies that cover all the buzzwords from virtual and augmented reality, to machine learning, robotics and artificial intelligence.
