E-commerce continues to grow at an unprecedented pace. Total retail sales, excluding the sale of items not normally bought online -- like fuel, automobiles, and food at restaurants -- hit $3.628 trillion last year, up 3.9 percent year over year from $3.490 trillion. E-commerce accounted for a 14.3 percent share of that total, and 51.9 percent of all retail growth. That is substantial, and it has encouraged many people to take advantage of the booming opportunity. It can be difficult for SMB owners to compete without the right tools in place. [More...]

The Walt Disney Corporation officially announced Disney+, its direct-to-consumer streaming service, during its Investor Day webcast last week. The new over-the-top service will become available on Nov. 12 for a $6.99 month subscription. Disney+ will arrive with more than 25 new TV programs, as well as more than 10 new movies. The service will expand to include more than 400 movies from the Disney vaults, as well as other IP from Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, National Geographic, and 20th Century Fox -- all now owned by the Mouse House. [More...]

Condres OS, a distro much like the defunct Apricity OS, could be a speedier replacement for Linux OSes that have turned slow to no-go in recent new releases. Condres OS is an Arch-based distro that offers many pleasing usability traits similar to three popular Debian-based distros: Linux Mint; Peppermint; and Zorin, which bundles ICE and Wine accouterments. Condres OS, as is typical of Arch distributions, comes with a rolling release upgrade model. It is very easy to install and use. Something else that impresses me with Condres OS is its software balance. [More...]

NICE inContact has released the Spring 2019 version of its CXone cloud-based contact center software, with multiple AI-powered updates for smarter customer and agent engagement, plus enhanced CRM integrations. NICE inContact CXone "is the most complete, unified, and intelligent cloud contact center platform available in the market," said company spokesperson Cheryl Andrus. NICE inContact CXone combines best-in-class omnichannel routing, analytics, workforce optimization, automation and artificial intelligence in one platform. [More...]