While many people have been stuck at home during the pandemic, virtual travel marketing has emerged to help fill the void felt by those who yearn for faraway places. The E-Commerce Times caught up with some virtual travel experts to discover how they're using various technologies to give folks the opportunity to explore the world without leaving their homes.

Nvidia last week announced they are buying Arm, which will result in some exciting changes. This merger will open up opportunities for the company to create new, innovative, and compelling products across the technology ecosystem. Let's talk about that this week, and we'll close with my product of the week -- a new business class notebook from HP, the EliteBook 840 G7.

Computer systems design and related services added 13,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's August jobs report. IT employment in July was up by more than 203,000 positions since the COVID-19 outbreak; and there were more than 235,000 job postings by U.S. employers, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association.

SugarCRM last month announced its acquisition of AI-as-a-Service provider Node. This marks the fourth acquisition by SugarCRM since the company's investment by Accel-KKR in August 2018. CRM Buyer discussed the current state of CRM platforms with SugarCRM CEO Craig Charlton, and how artificial intelligence is key to improved sales, service, and predictability in automated CX.

The fact is that people tend to judge us by our appearance. For a lot of folks on video calls, that appearance has degraded sharply this year. Wrinkled clothing, no makeup, partial beards, hair on men down to their shoulders, and work locations that are sloppy, dingy and dark. These all have become everyday experiences on video calls. A few vendors recently showcased new tech to address how we look and sound in online meetings.

Centralizing all tools and customer-effecting services into one system delivers great efficiencies for businesses. However, enabling customers to have the same experience in real time is the difference between a CRM and CXM. CRM Buyer pursued the potential transition process -- and the impact of both CRM and CXM products -- in a conversation with Thryv VP Ryan Cantor.

Coronavirus has ushered upon us an era of isolation and curtailed face-to-face operations in favor of virtual interactions. The service of demand and delivery has shifted mainly to digital channels. While this trend was visible in the pre-COVID world, the pandemic has accelerated digital-first engagement. Here are six ways to improve employee productivity and streamline business operations in the new normal.

Users of video conference tools should be aware of the growing risk of impersonation attacks. Cybercriminals are capitalizing on the exponential increase of users turning to Zoom and other platforms to collaborate across work and friend networks. Researchers have identified attacks stemming from Australia, Germany, the U.S. and elsewhere.

In-person workout sessions these days might seem like a thing of the past, while solitary workouts at home replace gym visits as an ongoing result of the pandemic. The use of artificial intelligence is not yet a common feature in fitness apps, but it is a main component in a popular India-based app now focused on growing users in the U.S. and Canada.

Customer loyalty has increased drastically in the last five years, though it has not reached boom status for many brands. Winning repeat business is increasingly difficult, especially with the economic uncertainty brought on by COVID-19. New studies reveal how solidly personalization in marketing drives brand loyalty, however consumers still feel that brands fail to do enough to recognize them as individuals.

Who can forget Princess Leia's hologram asking for Obi-Wan Kenobi's help in the movie Star Wars? That was perhaps the best-known hologram of the many used in the Star Wars franchise movies. The power and promise of holographic technology have been depicted in science fiction stories for years. Today, several companies are at work to bring immersive transportation to the real world.

Google's domination of the online ad market appears to have stalled since Amazon last year became the third-largest digital ad platform in the U.S. behind the Google-Facebook duopoly. This may have driven Google to accelerate its push into e-commerce, focusing on what it calls the "messy middle" -- the space in the customer journey between what triggers the purchase and the actual purchase itself.

Artificial intelligence will play a major role as we try to move to a post-pandemic world, especially as it pertains to tracking people's health and wellbeing in public areas. Employers will tap technology solutions to help them face challenges such as adhering to new rules and regulations, monitoring compliance, and ensuring employee confidence and morale remains positive.

Digital technologies can help shift health and public safety agencies from a "detect and respond" approach to a "predict and prevent" stratagem. They can also set the stage for a more connected and data-led approach through robust cybersecurity architectures, efficient remote workforces, and secure connectivity services.

Last month Mercedes and Nvidia announced a relationship. The potential for Mercedes and Nvidia to change the very nature of personal transportation is carried within this partnership. This combination could be magical, both in terms of creating a better alternative to Tesla, and a deeper relationship between you and the company providing your car as a service.

If you search for "why CRM fails" you get over three million results. Analysts report that close to half of all CRM projects fail and about 40 percent of CRM software purchased goes unused -- because sales teams don't want to use software that makes them glorified data entry clerks and still doesn't "work." As a CRM industry veteran, this ongoing failure rate hits close to home, and in my experience is much higher.

Qualcomm has announced its Robotics RB5 platform, with 5G and 4G connectivity, on-device AI and machine learning. The platform's Qualcomm QRB5165 processor, which is customized for robotics applications, offers a heterogeneous computing architecture coupled with the 5th-generation Qualcomm AI Engine that delivers 15 Tera Trillion Operations Per Second (TOPS) of AI performance.

Amazon is rolling out a system that combines artificial intelligence and augmented reality to help workers maintain social distancing in the workplace. The new system has been deployed at a handful of Amazon buildings, but the company plans to deploy hundreds of the units in the coming weeks. Augmented reality is used to create a magic-mirror-like tool that enables workers to see their physical distance from each other.

Apple plans to announce a new processor for its Mac computer line at its virtual World Wide Developers Conference later this month, according to a report. The company will begin using an ARM chip based on Apple's A14 processor, which will be featured in the next iPhone. The computers will continue to use macOS and not Apple's mobile operating system, iOS.

Some 50 editors working for Microsoft's news operation have learned their contracts won't be renewed and their jobs will be performed by artificial intelligence software, according to reports. The contractors hired through staffing agencies Aquent, IFG and MAQ Consulting were notified May 27 that their services would not be needed beyond June 30. MSN will use AI to do the jobs of the editors.

One of the exciting things that came out of Microsoft Build was that the company has been working to create virtual court solutions. If done right, a virtual system could fix a lot of court-related problems. It would allow judges to work around their schedules better and give attorneys improved access to online resources. It also might provide a way for jurors to improve their understanding.

Customer attrition and churn are not new problems. Anyone who has spent time in the sales world has heard statistics around the cost of acquiring a new customer. It can be five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Improving customer retention by just 5 percent can increase profits by 25-95 percent, depending on your industry and company size.

The concept of AI improving emotional intelligence might sound like a paradox. A coded algorithm is not the most natural supplement to human empathy. Yet CX leaders understand that AI-powered technologies can transform the way businesses understand core audiences. Customer service agents benefit from real-time and historical sentiment analysis that takes the guesswork out of reading emotions.

We've been promised, repeatedly, that AI would revolutionize e-commerce. Think about it for a moment. Has it lived up to expectations for you? If not, the problem may lie not in the technology you've deployed on your site, but in the architecture and data that support it. The effectiveness of AI-powered features ultimately depends on a high level of discipline about data and architecture.

Autonomous car efforts aren't looking very good. It is becoming clear that the five-level ranking system for autonomous cars is stupid. The reality is that the definition of "autonomous" is binary: Either the car can drive itself or it can't. The fact is that car makers don't want to take the final step to autonomy -- Level 5 -- because they are afraid of liability.

Microsoft has unveiled several new AI capabilities across Dynamics 365 applications and a new solution to help project-centric services organizations transform their operations. The AI enhancements include first- and third-party data connections in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Microsoft's customer data platform. The company also unveiled new manual and predictive forecasting capabilities.

A session on the role of emerging technologies in the courtroom was part of last month's New York State Bar Association Annual Meeting in New York City. "Emerging Technologies in Litigation" included a panel of local and federal judges as well as an e-discovery researcher and emerging technology attorney. The group discussed the use of artificial intelligence in the courtroom.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, called for government regulation of artificial intelligence technology in a speech at Bruegel, a think tank in Brussels, and in an op-ed. There is no question in Pichai's mind that AI should be regulated, he said. The question is what will be the best approach. Sensible regulation should balance potential harm with potential good.

An optimized customer experience can tip the balance toward gaining a purchase instead of losing a customer. Excellent CX has transitioned firmly from something nice to have to a business requirement. No matter how good a product or service is, the e-commerce Web and mobile design surrounding it will play a key role in maintaining engagement and ensuring consumers complete their shopping journey.

Companies across industries are shifting toward an automated approach to customer relations. With the help of chatbots, businesses can reduce their customer service costs by up to 30 percent and save both employees' and customers' valuable time. In fact, many customers welcome chatbots in the customer service process. So, if chatbots offer all of these advantages, why not automate everything?