Japanese Internet services and e-commerce group, Rakuten's India unit, is opening a new office in Bengaluru on Thursday, in a bid to expand globally. The new facility houses product, engineering, and advanced research and is Rakuten Group's "largest outside Japan," according to the company. The hub will further enhance the company's capability for deep-tech innovation and research and development (R&D) in areas such as e-commerce, fintech, content and entertainment, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) in computer vision, speech, and natural language processing (NLP), the company said in a statement. Rakuten's online shopping platform is not available in India, but the $15 billion company already has an India office in Bengaluru that was set up in 2014, which, according to the company, was "the largest among its nine technology hubs outside Japan". It currently has around 2,000 employees, responsible for developing software for the company's online brokerage arm, as well as running a 24-hour security operation.

The graph represents a network of 1,000 Twitter users whose tweets in the requested range contained "fashiontech", or who were replied to or mentioned in those tweets. The network was obtained from the NodeXL Graph Server on Thursday, 27 January 2022 at 06:58 UTC. The requested start date was Thursday, 27 January 2022 at 01:01 UTC and the maximum number of days (going backward) was 14. The maximum number of tweets collected was 7,500. The tweets in the network were tweeted over the 11-day, 20-hour, 0-minute period from Friday, 14 January 2022 at 22:59 UTC to Wednesday, 26 January 2022 at 19:00 UTC.

DataDome, a cybersecurity company, announced that it has raised $35 million from Elephant, and its historical investor ISAI. The firm is known for its Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that uses artificial intelligence to protect the data of companies suffering from fraud committed by malicious robots. This investment will allow DataDome to strengthen its teams. Founded in 2015 by Fabien Grenier and Benjamin Fabre, DataDome is a cybersecurity company whose main mission is to help companies protect their data and digital activities. A fast-growing demand: bot fraud attacks are constantly on the rise as they are up 47% over the last six months.

Japan Post Co. and major online shopping mall operator Rakuten Inc. have reached a basic agreement on a tie-up aimed at streamlining logistics with the use of digital technologies. The two companies will try to tackle delivery staff shortages and other logistics-related challenges by sharing Japan Post's massive trove of data on postal items and Rakuten's forecast information regarding online shopping demand, they said on Thursday. The mail delivery arm of Japan Post Holdings Co. and Rakuten will also consider cooperation in other fields such as cashless payment and mobile phone services. They aim to sign a final agreement in around March next year. "We see tie-up possibilities in a variety of fields, even outside the financial and mobile sectors," Japan Post Holdings President Hiroya Masuda told a news conference, showing the group's strong interest in enhancing business ties with Rakuten.

INTERVIEW: Anand Prasad (pictured), chief information and security officer at Japanese startup operator Rakuten, reckons the full benefits of AI as a means of improving IT and network security will only be unlocked if people remain in the loop. He noted companies can't rely on AI to deliver 100 per cent of their security needs: while some issues can be detected using algorithms and machine learning, "after that you'll always need a human being at the end to have a 100 per cent secure system". Prasad reckons AI will never be perfect, so "there will always be a balance". The e-commerce giant's Rakuten Mobile unit plans to take on incumbent operators NTT Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank by launching a network in Japan in October. As an internet player, he said the company is using its IT experience to differentiate itself by taking a completely cloud-native approach, with plans to virtualise the radio network.

ViSenze, an image recognition startup that delivers visual search tools designed for online retailers such as ASOS and Rakuten, recently revealed that it had secured $20 million in a Series C funding round. Both Sonae IM and Gobi Ventures co-led the financing round, which also included the participation of other investors, including returning backers WI Harper and Rakuten. Established back in 2012, ViSenze has so far raised a total of 34.5 million dollars (its previous funding round was a Series B held in September 2016). ViSenze customers include the likes of Uniqlo, Zalora, and Urban Outfitters, who bill the Singapore-based company's software portfolio as a "personal shopping concierge" that helps shoppers in finding or discovering products based on automatic photo tagging, visual search, and suggestions based on their browser history. The company's verticals include intellectual property, furniture, jewelry, and fashion.

In hopes of luring skilled workers both at home and form abroad with a chance to reside in Japan's ancient capital of Kyoto, Line Corp., a popular messaging app service, opened a new development base in the heart of the city in June. The firm plans to raise the number of engineers to 3,000, from around 2,100, in the near future. At present, the Kyoto office has 19 engineers of which 10 are from overseas. While more tech staffers are needed, "we won't lower our hiring bar," said Ryohei Miyota, who oversees the hiring of engineers at Line's Kyoto branch. Still, Line has shown it is willing to be flexible with other conditions.

One of India's biggest names in AI, Dr. Dakshinamurthy V Kolluru, took to the stage at Rakuten CTO Summit 2018 on March 14 in Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore. Speaking in front of a rapt audience of 51 CTOs and heads of engineering from Rakuten Group's businesses across the globe, Kolluru traced the fascinating history of machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence, elucidating on how AI can benefit businesses and improve customer experience. Rakuten, which promotes use of AI in all of its group companies, was keen to hear the thoughts of the man described by Analytics India Mag as "a visionary, an analytics expert and a passionate educator, who has been doing highly innovative work in the field of analytics -- be it consulting, product development, corporate training or educating -- since 1999, when analytics was not part of the common lingo that it has become today." The Founder and President of International School of Engineering (INSOFE) Hyderabad, Kolluru has helped set up many data science centers of excellence (COEs) and has conducted training for multinational corporations such as Johnson and Johnson in the US and Microsoft, HP, Broadridge Financial Services and others in India. Kolluru, whose expertise lies in simplifying complex ideas and communicating them clearly, drew on landmark studies to explain where AI and deep learning fit in the spectrum of technologies like machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA) and how they can help complex businesses like Rakuten solve problems across functions and verticals.

Convenience store chain Lawson Inc. and Japanese cybermall operator said Friday that they will organize a demonstration test on Oct. 31 for drone delivery services in an area devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and the subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture. The test will be conducted in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, utilizing a Lawson outlet, a mobile shop and Rakuten's drone. When the traveling shop visits areas some 2.7 km from the convenience store, it will take orders from local residents and deliver products from the outlet, including warm cooked food. The service will be available only on Thursdays during the test, and the experiment will be conducted over a period of six months. The drone can carry up to 2 kg of products and deliver them in about seven minutes.

Japan Post Co. said Monday it is considering using drones to move packages between post offices, possibly from next year, due to an increasing shortage of delivery workers. The envisioned project by the mail and package delivery unit of state-owned Japan Post Holdings Co. comes in the wake of e-commerce operator Rakuten Inc. and major parcel delivery provider Yamato Holdings Co. testing drone deliveries, but safety concerns remain about the new delivery method. Japan Post is considering using drones in step with the government's pro-growth plan under which drone use is eyed for parcel delivery in mountainous regions in 2018 and in urban areas in the 2020s. "We are aiming to fly drones between post offices in mountainous areas and remote islands," Japan Post Executive Vice President Seiki Fukuda said at a news conference Monday. In order for drone delivery to be put to practical use, Fukuda said, "how far regulations will be loosened" will be important.