Walmart's Store No. 8 Ventures Into Virtual-Reality Retail
*By Christian Smith*
In its relentless quest to improve shopping, Walmart is trying to recreate an in-store experience for online shoppers using virtual reality developed by Spatialand, a software start-up the retail giant acquired earlier this year.
VR may seem like a novelty, but Spatialand's CEO and the founder of Walmart's tech incubator Store No. 8, Katie Finnegan, said it may may be more mainstream in the near future.
"It's pretty similar when you look at the original smartphone or cell phone market, she said Wednesday in an interview with Cheddar. "Those were sort of novelties, as well."
Finnegan and Walmart hope that VR can enhance shopping for the company's millions of customers.
"Studies show that when you're immersed in it you actually retain, and actually understand and validate that information in a much better way than you could do just on a 2D screen, but also as you could do in a physical store," Finnegan said.
The company is already using VR to train its new sales associates by simulating challenging situations like November's dreaded Black Friday.
Eventually, Walmart plans to use VR to market more experiential products, which Finnegan separates from "consumables" like groceries and toiletries, for customers who may want a preview.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/how-walmart-plans-to-use-vr-to-improve-the-customer-experience).
Arturo Béjar testified before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday about social media and the teen mental health crisis, hoping to shed light on how Meta executives, including Zuckerberg, knew about the harms Instagram was causing but chose not to make meaningful changes to address them.
Uber missed analysts' projections for earnings per share and revenue this past quarter. Cheddar News takes a closer look at the numbers and explains what to expect for the rest of the fiscal year.
The Air Force is asking Congress to restrict further construction of the towering wind turbines that have edged closer to its nuclear missile sites in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado.
Elon Musk unveiled 'Grok,' his new A.I. chatbot over the weekend, adding that it will be more rebellious than its counterparts. Cheddar News breaks it down.
The trial between Google and the maker of the game Fortnite will begin Monday as a San Francisco jury will hear Epic Games' case claiming the Google Play Store takes an unfair commission on purchases made through apps.
Google on Monday will try to protect a lucrative piece of its internet empire at the same time it’s still entangled in the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century.
