BRAND: The marketing industry changes faster than most fashion trends. Sure, there are some basic fundamental principles that are always the same—know your audience, measure your results, and so on—but the mechanisms and tools we use to speak to our audiences and get those results are in a perpetual forward momentum. This is accelerated, in part, due to the evolving nature of technology, but the fierceness of competition is another factor.

BRAND: At the center of all this upheaval sits Coca-Cola—the largest beverage company in the world thanks to its eponymous sugar-laden soda. Recently, the company said that, due to a severe sugar shortage in Venezuela, it was suspending production of its signature product in the country as its economy teeters on collapse. Clearly, the politics of sugar have become combustible. Bad politics makes for bad business.

DATA: “The ability to pull high-resolution data from these vehicles and to update the vehicles over the air is a significant part of what’s allowed us in 18 months to go from very behind the curve to what is today one of the more advanced autonomous or semi-autonomous driving features,” said Sterling Anderson, director of Tesla’s Autopilot program, at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Digital conference in San Francisco.

DATA: Foursquare and Uber have today announced a global partnership that would use Foursquare’s location data to let users type in a venue name (instead of address) when setting their destination. Uber currently partners with Google Maps for points of interest, with TomTom Navigation hooked into the driver apps for directions and transit information. With the addition of Foursquare’s data, Uber users will be able to type in the name of their location.

BRAND: Corporations like LinkedIn and Oracle are now hiring an army of “millennial consultants” who charge as much as $20,000 an hour for their expertise on how to manage and market to young people, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. The consultant bonanza follows a trend that has been shaping the business world for the last few years — millennials, executives believe, are coming for every industry, and businesses that do not appease them risk being trampled by them.

OMNICHANNEL: eero claims to be the only wireless mesh routing system for Wi-Fi. The new funds will help give the startup the assistance needed to grow and begin to forge relationships with retailers both online and off. eero plans to launch with one such brick-and-mortar chain, Best Buy, this summer and is expected to begin selling through BestBuy.com at the beginning of next week.

BRAND: As part of a two-part panel entitled “Venture Capital Perspectives on Retail and Consumer Investing,” Bain Capital Ventures Managing Director Scott Friend said that in particular he expects to see significant and audacious investment by traditional legacy retailers in digital brands during the next five years. The skills and experience of contemporary retailers are not in the DNA of the traditional retailer, he said, adding "they need each other."

ECOMMERCE: Bluesmart suitcases use their own SIM card and 3G connection, in partnership with Telefonica, to constantly track the location of your luggage. It also comes with its own USB charger and 10,000 mAh battery, so users can charge their smartphone up to six times throughout their travels. The Bluesmart suitcase also has Bluetooth-enabled remote locking, so the suitcase automatically locks when you are out of range.

DATA: It is not a secret that Siri has not kept up the pace that just about all of us expected, including some of the Siri team. The passion that Steve had seemed to have been waning deep inside of Apple and the results were Dag and AdamCheyer moved on and formed Five Six Labs (A play on V IV in Roman numerals) and Viv. Tom Gruber, one of the original team members and the chief scientist that created Siri technology, stayed on and continued his work.

DATA: When it comes to running accurate mobile campaigns or making business decisions based on location data, do you know how accurate your data actually is? Many marketers may not know that there's a complex relationship between multiple variables that affect location data accuracy, such as Wi-Fi or GPS signal, environmental factors and pers

BRAND: Under Armour has shrewdly expanded from its base of Maryland, Texas Tech, Auburn and South Carolina, spreading its wings to 20 FBS programs (15.6%) and eight of the 10 FBS leagues. UA has added Cincinnati, Wisconsin and California of late and on Tuesday paired Notre Dame with UCLA among blue blood programs. Among that group, all but California was yanked away from Adidas, allowing UA to pass Adidas for second place in the Power 5 population.

ECOMMERCE: As part of its suite, Radial is offering the Fraud Insights tool, which utilizes machine-learning technology to help merchants of any size improve on their order conversion rate using their existing eCommerce infrastructure. The free tool works as a supplement to an online merchant’s existing fraud solution to deliver a real-time high-, medium- or low-risk rating for every order it processes.