Is Amazon Prime Past Peak? | Toys R Us Taps Experiential Retail To Battle Bankruptcy | Didi Chuxing's $4B Expansion Play

Global QSR chain CaliBurger has a facial recognition kiosk for customers, but it’s not for payments — or at least, not yet. That feature is coming in early 2018, according to Cali Group CEO John Miller. Instead, the company started by using artificial intelligence to recognize customers and call up their profiles, including past orders and earned loyalty points. Here’s why Miller believes these kiosks could go the same way as the ones in airports, from skepticism to acceptance — and why Karen Webster agrees. Read More...

Alexa just learned her 25,000th skill, and the Echo started a price war among voice-activated smart home speakers. How did Google respond (and how did Apple not)? On top of that, China doesn’t hate Facebook after all, Google is helping users travel smarter and Microsoft weathered a North Korean cyberattack last week. This and more top stories from the Frightful Five, just in case you missed it. Read More...

How can payments and financial industry players balance what consumers need (security) with what they want (convenience) so that they don’t flee to the competition? CA Technologies shared insights from new research on how being on top of fraud means staying top-of-wallet in an increasingly FinTech-dominated field. Read More...