Intel and productivity solutions manufacturer Honeywell have teamed up together to bring the Internet of Things into retail business operations for retailers to learn more about their customers to better serve them. The two are collaborating to come up with new Iota solutions that will leverage sensors, handheld computers, processors, bar code scanners, RFID tags and readers and cloud-based software. Their collaboration exemplifies how IoT is progressing, making dramatic changes outside of just a “cool factor.”

Online home buying resource realtor.com is test piloting a pair of new features on its application, Sign Snap and Street Peak, that make real estate data more accessible through image recognition technology. The features are currently in different stages of development: Sign Snap uses image recognition technologies, as well as the smartphone's camera and GPS capabilities to search the entire realtor.com property database, and is available now. Street Peak, which lets users pan a street and uses augmented reality to surface property details about homes on that street, is slated for release this spring.

Qualcomm, the San Diego-based maker of a key processing chip used in cell phones, was slapped with an antitrust lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday. The company is guilty of using its dominant position in the marketplace to maintain a monopoly by unlawfully requiring “onerous and anticompetitive” supply terms of cell phone makers, the Commission charged. The suit also alleges that Qualcomm demanded that Apple use its processors exclusively in the iPhone in exchange for reduced patent royalties from 2011 to 2016.

The Staples Easy Button is the symbol of the brand’s vision of “anywhere and everywhere” commerce that is bringing purchasing to mobile and a host of other channels, according to an executive from the company. Speaking at an event the National Retail Federation’s Big Show, the executive outlined the broad strategy that Staples is taking to let consumers make purchases in a variety of new ways. These new purchasing methods revolve around the new and improved Easy Button and a suite of other purchasing options.

Starting today, residents and businesses in Redwood City, Calif., and Washington, D.C., can get food delivered right to their doors — via robot. Starship Technologies, an Estonia-based startup created by two Skype co-founders, Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, will put its autonomous ground-delivery robots to work delivering food with Postmates in Washington, D.C., and DoorDash in Redwood City, Calif. The six-wheeled robots are a little under two feet tall, weigh about 40 pounds empty and travel four miles per hour — walking speed. The idea is that one day soon these autonomous rovers will share sidewalk space with pedestrians …

Amazon was awarded a patent for a network that manages a very specific aspect of the self-driving experience: How autonomous cars navigate reversible lanes. Reversible lanes indicate a change in direction of traffic with an overhead signal, making it a potential disaster zone for self-driving cars that haven’t yet been programmed to understand those signals. In the patent, Amazon outlines a network that can communicate with self-driving vehicles so they can adjust to the change in traffic flow. That’s particularly important for self-driving vehicles traveling across state lines onto new roads with unfamiliar traffic laws.

Intel wants to take your shopping experience into the future by building a retail-focused Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform and investing $100 million in the retail sector. The Santa Clara-based chip maker will create a common set of sensors, software kits and other components that will aid brick-and-mortar sellers with inventory tracking, shopping habit feedback and creating personalized shopping experiences. The technology will be a part of the company’s new Responsive Retail Platform, which CEO Brian Krzanich announced Monday while speaking at the National Retail Federation's Big Show conference in New York City.

VideoAmp and Immersv have just teamed up for a development that could boost the reach of virtual reality. VideoAmp is a Video platform for the TV and Video ecosystem; its partner Immersv is a leading virtual reality (VR) discovery and advertising platform. Their agreement involves connecting Immersv’s VR/360 advertising platform with VideoAmp’s proprietary user graph, screen tensor video, and ad platform. “Under the terms of the partnership, VideoAmp will be able to provide access to 360 video inventory in VR headsets, and run highly targeted and high-quality traffic on the Immersv mobile VR advertising platform,” reads a joint statement.

Just over two years after leaving Google, Andy Rubin is preparing to take on the smartphone industry he helped create. Rubin, creator of the Android operating system, is planning to marry his background in software with artificial intelligence in a risky business: consumer hardware. Armed with about a 40-person team, filled with recruits from Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Rubin is preparing to announce a new company called Essential and serve as its Chief Executive Officer, according to people familiar with the matter. A platform company designed to tie multiple devices together, Essential is working on a suite of consumer hardware …

Airbus Group plans to test a prototype for a self-piloted flying car as a way of avoiding gridlock on city roads by the end of the year, the aerospace group's chief executive said on Monday. Airbus last year formed a division called Urban Air Mobility that is exploring concepts such as a vehicle to transport individuals or a helicopter-style vehicle that can carry multiple riders. The aim would be for people to book the vehicle using an app, similar to car-sharing schemes. "One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground," …