It’s Friday, the weekend is almost upon us, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail systems space. Here’s your briefing on the most important stories from the past five days, including Emperia, Recite Me, Amperity, Walmart’s incubator arm Store No8, and Outlier Ventures.

1. Emperia – new Apple mixed reality headset Vision Pro ‘entails a new mode of brand interaction’

Apple this week unveiled a mixed reality headset called Vision Pro – its first entirely new product in eight years.

The device blends a video feed from the outside world with a virtual world displayed on screens inside the headset.

“Today marks the beginning of a new era for computing,” says Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Just as the Mac introduced us to personal computing, and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro introduces us to spatial computing.”

“Built upon decades of Apple innovation, Vision Pro is years ahead and unlike anything created before – with a revolutionary new input system and thousands of groundbreaking innovations. It unlocks incredible experiences for our users and exciting new opportunities for our developers.”

As a specialist in the field of virtual stores and immersive e-commerce, Emperia views this new announcement as a massive step into mass adoption of such technology, with tangible benefits for brands.

“Apple has always been a trailblazer for mass adoption with their emerging and brand new tech, take the iPhone for example. Vision Pro could be the catalyst for the mass adoption of XR”, says Olga Dogadkina, Co-founder and CEO at Emperia,

“in creating the new device, Apple is bringing a utility to XR beyond gaming. For the first time, XR headset has more actual functionality than other devices in the market, offering capabilities for work and entertainment.”

“Coupled with human interaction and a design that has all chances of gaining iconic status like most Apple products, the device will almost inevitably gain popularity. This means web UX/UI as we know it will become obsolete, limited by the 2D screen.”

She adds: “For retail, this entails a new mode of brand interaction, one that goes beyond the boundaries of a flat screen and physical space simultaneously. This means deeper customer connection, more intuitive user interactions, more personalisation of customer experience than was ever achievable before.”