By Anne D'Innocenzio, Retail Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Wal-Mart is launching an incubator lab focused on projects in robotics, virtual and augmented reality, and artificial intelligence as it aims to compete more aggressively with Amazon.
The so-called Store No. 8 will be located in Silicon Valley and marks the latest attempt by the company's new head of e-commerce operations, Marc Lore, to speed up innovation at the company. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Arkansas, brought over Lore, the founder of Jet.com, when the discounter bought the online retailer last year for more than $3 billion. Wal-Mart has been on an acquisition binge since then, snapping up ShoeBuy, Moosejaw and ModCloth.
The incubator lab's mission will be to house new startups that will run independently from the company. It will hatch, invest in and team up with entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists to create proprietary technology. Wal-Mart says these startups "will be ring-fenced from the broader organization, so they have the room to grow and develop."
Store No. 8 is named after an early store where Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton used to test different ideas that could be rolled out.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More