n order to speed up how products get to market Lululemon is improving its supply chain, reports Sourcing Journal. One step it is taking is having a segmented supply chain.

Walmart’s recent patent application seems like something out of a 1959 issue of Popular Mechanics. Who would conjour up a mixture of last century tech to fill modern supply chain demands? Turns out it may be Walmart who mixes and matches blimps, drones, mechanized warehousing, and wireless communication to bring near-instant delivery to the masses and do better than Amazon’s Prime 2 day delivery service.

You’ve likely encountered chatbots even if they didn’t introduce themselves as such. Today you’re most likely to encounter them when you call a customer support hotline or online chat service. They ask questions and deliver answers and act surprisingly like human operators… except they’re much more quickly available.