Why can't computers watch the Earth from above and automatically map our roads, buildings, and trash heaps? Satellite operator DigitalGlobe is teaming up with Amazon, the venture arm of the CIA, and chipmaker Nvidia to try to make it happen. In a joint project, DigitalGlobe today released satellite imagery depicting the whole of Rio de Janeiro to a resolution of 50 centimeters. The outlines of 200,000 buildings inside the city's roughly 1,900 square kilometers have been manually marked on the photos. The SpaceNet data set, as it is called, is intended to spark efforts to train machine-learning algorithms to interpret high-resolution satellite photos by themselves.

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.

On Sunday, the Japanese prime minister turned up at the Olympics closing ceremonies to promote the 2020 Tokyo games dressed up as Mario, the eponymous hero of the popular video game series created in 1985. Who is Mario and how did he come by his global appeal? Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared as the Nintendo game character Super Mario at the Olympics closing ceremonies to promote the 2020 Tokyo games. Mario Brothers is the best-selling video franchise of all time, with more than 490 million units sold since 1995, according to research firm NPD. There are more than 100 games, for various gaming systems, ranging from Donkey Kong to Super Mario Kart, in which Mario is the primary character, and many more in which he makes appearances.

Enrique Zarate, 19, had spent just a year in college when he landed an apprenticeship at a new BMW facility in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. If he performs well, in a year he'll win a well-paid position, with benefits, working with robots at the company's newest plant. Within a decade or so, most of the BMW 3 series cars that Americans buy will probably come from Mexico, built by people like Zarate. "When you start with such little experience, and get such a big salary, it's unbelievable," says Zarate, whose father is a taxi driver and whose mother is a housewife. Exports from Mexican factories have jumped 13% since 2012.

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In 2011, Bentley's new CEO decided to get into the luxury SUV market. Wolfgang Durheimer, the incoming boss, had migrated across parent company Volkswagen Group from the Porsche division. He saw what the popular Cayenne crossover had done for Porsche's bottom line. Durheimer gave the Bentley engineers a simple mandate: Make the most powerful, most luxurious and most exclusive SUV on the planet. With the 2017 Bentley Bentayga, the company's first crossover, he appears to have succeeded.

It may sound like something from the Minority Report, but this app can predict where crimes will take place. The software, called CrimeRadar, has just launched its prototype in the Olympic host city of Rio de Janeiro. The app uses advanced machine learning to predict crime rates in the city's neighbourhoods at different times of the day and night. The Olympic Games have, arguably, exposed crime levels in Rio de Janeiro to a wider audience. A string of high profile robberies, allegedly including members of the US swim team; Australian athletes; and even the Brazilian government's head of security for events falling prey to criminals, have been reported.

Drones are already capable of capturing stunning aerial images and videos that wouldn't be possible with grounded cameras. But combining the abilities of these airborne vehicles with 360-degree cameras produces new perspectives that are even more immersive and breathtaking. SkyPixel recently held a competition to calling for artists to submit their most impressive 360-degree aerial images. It honored six standout candidates, which includes three main winners and three recipients of its "Brilliant" prize. Photographer Stanislav Sedov's panorama of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which is shown above, was named the third place winner.

Growing up in his grandmother's staunchly Catholic home in Cali, Colombia, Anthony Rivera never dreamed he'd become king of the Latin American nudie business. Soft-spoken and timid, Rivera was more comfortable working on computer science assignments than approaching girls. "I'd get stressed about meeting women," he recounts from his 12th-floor apartment in Medellín's posh El Poblado neighborhood. Even today, his role running a major adult webcam company seems incongruous with his diffidence -- but that might also be the key ingredient to his success. Rivera, born and partially raised in New York, has been instrumental in taking Colombia's webcam industry from the shadows to the second-largest webcam model market in the world, after Romania.

Canadian video game star Elliot Carroza-Oyarce won the gold medal Tuesday in the first-ever EGames contest, held amid the Olympics festivities in Rio de Janeiro. Organizers hoped the hours-long "Super Smash Bros." competition would show how the growing number of competitive video gamers across the world could have their own recurring celebration in the years to come. The e-sports community has been divided over whether video games should be in the Olympics, commemorated with their own global championships, or continue as is, with disparate worldwide contests and leagues. Video game players "don't necessarily want to be boxed in with traditional athletes," said Neil Duffy, executive vice president at the British nonprofit behind the EGames. "But the level of skill and practice and effort that this competition requires really is comparable with that of a football or basketball player."