This year's holiday season is predicted to be the first with over $100 billion in online sales, with mobile growing in importance. Cyber Monday, the first Monday following Thanksgiving, saw record online sales with $6.59 billion over the course of one day. This represents a 16.8% year-over-year increase, as over $1 billion more was spent this year by consumers compared to Cyber Monday in 2016. The holiday season (beginning on November 1st) has brought more than $50 billion in online revenue. 

Mobile grew in strength year-over-year as it set its own record on Cyber Monday representing 47.4 % of traffic throughout the day and 33.1% of revenue. Revenue from smartphones alone came in at $1.59 billion, a 39.2% growth compared to its performance last year. Smaller Retailers, companies with under $10 million in annual revenue, experienced 30% higher conversion rates on smartphones compared to large retailers (companies with over $100 million in annual revenue). Unsurprisingly, the top retail promotion driver was search, driving 41.7% of traffic. Organic search represented 18.8 % of the total, just short of the 22.1% paid search represented. 

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Researches at Stanford have developed a neural network, CheXNet, capable of outperforming Radiologists at spotting Pneumonia and 13 other diseases. Advances in the capabilities of AI has enabled neural networks to recently perform as good or better than doctors at spotting problems on CT scans, and this latest result adds spotting lung diseases to that list. 

Trained using 100,000 chest x-rays that contained 14 different diseases from a publicly available data source, CheXNet was initially tested against four Radiologists to see who could better spot Pneumonia. Not only did CheXNet spot Pneumonia better, it also outperformed the Radiologists at spotting the 13 other dangerous diseases it was trained with. Pneumonia remains a worldwide threat, and remains the single largest infectious cause of death to children worldwide.  Advancements in the early detection of this dangerous lung disease could greatly decrease it's impact and provides more support to the growing sentiment that AI should be relied upon more in the medicine. Deep learning algorithms excel at analyzing and learning from image-based data sets and research is beginning to show that these tasks represent an area where AI consistently outperforms humans. 


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A study from the DPD Group on the current state of Portuguese e-commerce revealed a variety of illuminating statistics regarding its online consumers. Although the number of online consumers in Portugal increased to 48%, the number is still below the European average of 54%.  A vast majority of consumers describe their latest online shopping experience as positive (76%), and consider using e-commerce an "easy" process. Online purchasing habits in Portugal have shifted from books and CDs to high-tech electronics, cosmetics/health, and fashion. 

The DPD Group study also revealed that 56% of millennials purchase online using smartphones and 83% choose to buy on foreign websites. Born between 1984 and 2000, this generation of consumers will reach 47% of the world's active population by 2025. Portugal has the second highest "cross border"  buyer average, demonstrating that there is a lot of volume 


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Speaking to a room full of technology enthusiats during the opening night of Web Summit in Lisbon, Stephen Hawking used the stage to talk about the dangers of AI and to urge AI creators to "employ best practices and effective management." Stephen Hawking along with Elon Musk and other leading minds have spoken frequently about both the incredible benefits and risks that AI brings to humanity. Musk, Telsa and SpaceX CEO, has been adamant about the dangers that AI brings and has even hinted that the global race could lead to a third world war. 
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Hawking, a British Physicist, discussed how AI can be channelled to help tackle disease and poverty and transform all aspects of society. Importantly, he noted that AI can be the "biggest " or "worst" event in the history of our civilization and that its risks must be prepared for. He highlighted some European proposals being presented to establish rules over robotics and AI as measures that give him hope that humanity will begin to prepare for AI's consequences adequately. 

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For the second year in a row, Web Summit will kick off in Lisbon. Spanning 3 days, one of the largest technology and entrepreneurship   conferences in the world comes to Portugal. 270 of the more than 1,600 start-ups that will participate are Portuguese and 1,500 investors are expected to be present. Starts-ups are divided into into three classifications: Start, Beta, and Alpha. Start classified start-ups have the highest potential for growth; Beta start-ups already have some investment; Alpha start-ups are in early stages. Following the close of each day of Web Summit, participants flood the Portuguese capital to participate in Sunset and Night Summits. 

The presence of this international event is expected to continue to increase the notoriety of Portugal as a business destination and technology-oriented country. 


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