The idea for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's surprising "Super Mario" appearance at the closing ceremony of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics came originally from former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, now president of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics organizing committee. The behind-the-scenes story was disclosed by Toshiro Muto, director-general of the committee. "I hear he (Abe) willingly accepted our request when we told him he was the most suitable person to go on stage to raise publicity for the 2020 Games," Muto said Monday. At the Rio closing ceremony Sunday, Abe popped up from a huge green pipe, dressed as Mario from Nintendo Co.'s popular "Super Mario Bros." video game franchise. Tokyo 2020 organizers said in a statement that the idea came up during a brainstorming session.

New Delhi: Delhi-based artificial intelligence start-up Octo.ai has raised 200,000 from early stage investor Outbox Ventures, Rahul Khanna, managing partner of venture debt fund Trifecta Capital and Jaspreet Bindra, head of e-commerce at Mahindra & Mahindra, the company said on Tuesday. The company will use the fund for enhancing technology. Ltd) is an open-source analytics platform built for machine learning. It helps companies retain their data and apply machine learning to power real-time insights, recommendations and personalised feeds on their platform. It allows them to install Octo, and send personalised push messages to each user to drive more active users and engagement.

Baidu Inc needs to do more to diversity its business as the Chinese search engine firm falls behind domestic peers Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd in revenue and profit, analysts said on Monday. Such efforts are of urgent importance to help Baidu safeguard its position as one of China's big three internet giants, they added. In the second quarter ended June, Baidu saw 34 percent plunge in net income, which declined to 363 million and was less than one-fourth of that of Tencent, one of the most profitable tech firms in China. Also, as the Beijing-based firm wrestled with tougher government regulations on online advertising in the second quarter, e-commerce heavyweight Alibaba delivered its most robust quarterly growth since its 2014 IPO, marked by a 59 percent year-on-year rise in revenue. Vinsan Wang, an analyst at Tiger Brokerage Group, which provides internet brokerage business for US and Hong Kong stocks, said the revenue and profit gap between Baidu and its two archrivals Alibaba and Tencent is widening, but Baidu is still one of the top players in China's rapidly changing internet landscape.

Feels like a home away from home. Microsoft acquires AI-powered scheduling service Genee, to be shut down and merged with Office ... 'Software is eating the world': How robots, drones and artificial intelligence will change everything

UNITED NATIONS The United Nations is ready to deliver aid into Syria's Aleppo, but needs commitments from all parties in the war - not just Russia - to abide by a 48-hour humanitarian truce, the U.N. aid chief, angered by lack of assistance to civilians, said on Monday.

A car passes Delphi's world headquarters in Troy, Mich. Two major auto suppliers announced Tuesday they are joining forces to develop an advanced self-driving system by 2019, which would likely place them about a year ahead of the target time being set by some automakers. Mobileye, the Israel-based maker of sensors, and Delphi Automotive, a longtime traditional supplier to the auto industry, say they expect to co-develop a system that would be capable of at least Level 4 automated driving on a scale of five, meaning the car would be able to drive itself in almost all circumstances. "This partnership will allow us to give our customers an increased level of automated capabilities faster and more cost effectively," says Delphi CEO Kevin Clark in a statement. The two companies said in a joint statement that their platform will be demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January and be production ready in 2019. Automakers will be right behind them.

China's Cheetah Mobile, considered the world's leading mobile security and utility app developer, is preparing to accelerate its transition into a viable content-focused business, following a US 57 million purchase of media app operator News Republic in the second quarter. "This is a huge step for us," chief technology officer Charles Fan Chenggong told the South China Morning Post. "We can potentially reshape the news industry by introducing a strong, artificial intelligence-driven, personal news delivery service." The acquisition marks the most-ambitious bet to date by the New York-traded Cheetah Mobile, amid its recent struggle to boost advertising income. Analysts at the Blue Lotus Research Institute in Hong Kong said Cheetah had good "synergy" with News Republic, which works with more than 1,650 media partners.

'Software is eating the world': How robots, drones and artificial intelligence will change everything

If Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) were any indication, the deep-learning and artificial intelligence field has been coming to life faster than anyone seems to realize. The company has purchased Genee, an AI-powered scheduling tool, for an undisclosed amount. The deal was likely done in cash - unless the company specifically wanted some stock from Microsoft. The plan is for Genee to shut down its current service on September 1st as it integrates with Microsoft's Office 365. Genee was founded in order "to simplify the time-consuming task of scheduling (and rescheduling) meetings. It's especially useful for large groups and for when you don't have access to someone's calendar."

You can get a pretty good idea of a country's wealth by seeing how much it shines at night – just compare the intense brightness of China and South Korea to the dark mass of North Korea that's sandwiched between them. But nighttime lights don't tell you which neighborhoods or villages within a large region are merely poor and which are home to people living in abject poverty. That's the level of detail policymakers need when they decide where to deploy their economic development programs. You could get that detail by sending legions of survey-takers into crowded slums and sparsely populated rural areas. But that would be hugely time-consuming and cost tens of millions of dollars or more.