The city of Montreal is spending $3.6 million over two years on a new institute to study electrification and intelligent transportation, Mayor Denis Coderre announced Wednesday.

Oulu-based mobile game firm Koukoi Games may have hit a gold seam, after signing a contract to develop a tie-in mobile game for the upcoming 3D animated comedy film, Ferdinand. The deal with the 20th Century Fox subsidiary FoxNext Games places the Oulu game studio in the same company as the likes of Rovio, who created an Angry Birds spin-off for the animated film Rio.

Mobile game firm Koukoi Games announced last Thursday that it had picked up an offer from 20th Century Fox subsidiary FoxNext Games to produce an untitled companion game for the movie studio’s upcoming 3D animated film, Ferdinand.

The Tallinn-based Estonian startup, Teleport, has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by MOVE Guides, a company that moves and manages mobile workforce.

Teleport was founded in April 2014 by early Skype employees Sten Tamkivi and Silver Keskküla while Tamkivi was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Andreessen Horowitz, a private American venture capital firm. The company’s core product – Teleport Cities – uses data science and matching algorithms to help knowledge workers discover their best places to live and work. Teleport Cities provides income, cost and quality of life data from 260 cities around the world, and served over a million searches by its 250,000 users in 2016.

AMERICA’S BIGGEST TECH companies are remaking the internet through artificial intelligence. And more than ever, these companies are looking north to Canada for the ideas that will advance AI itself.

This morning, Google announced it’s starting an AI lab in Toronto. At the same time, it’s helping to fund a public-private partnership with the University of Toronto to develop and commercialize AI talent and ideas. In November, the company made a similar move in Montreal—a city that has also attracted Microsoft’s attention.

Arlington has ranked No. 19 on Livability.com's list of the Top 100 Best Places to Live. The study says Arlington's perfect blend of both urban and suburban make it one of the most highly desirable places to live in the Washington, D.C. area.

Also in the top 20 out of 100 are Charlottesville, Virginia and Rockville and Columbia in Maryland. Other regional communities on the list are:

• No. 27 Fairfax, Virginia
• No. 29 Bethesda, Maryland
• No. 32 Alexandria, Virginia
• No. 58 Reston, Virginia
• No. 63 Ellicott City Maryland
• No. 80 Ashburn, Virginia
• No. 88 Burke, Virginia

Google is contributing to the $150 million going into The Vector Institute, a new initiative housed at the University of Toronto, guided by chief scientific adviser Geoffrey Hinton. The Institute is getting started today, with significant investment from the governments of Canada and the province of Ontario. Google’s contribution is around $5 million, but it’s likely the future of the two organizations will be closely aligned, since Hinton also acts as VP and Engineering Fellow at Google, where he has had a key role in spearheading AI via Google Brain.

Oulu-based Koukoi Games unveiled a new partnership with FoxNext Games to develop a tie-in mobile game for the upcoming film, Ferdinand.

“Feel the beat with Ferdinand and his friends in this cheery and colorful idle puzzle game that brings the beloved character and spirit of Spain to life,” Rick Phillips, EVP of FoxNext Games, said in a statement.

Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and its School of Management (ESG UQAM), Tourisme Montréal and the City of Montréal have launched MT Lab, an incubator dedicated for tourism, culture and entertainment startups.

A joining of academic, entrepreneurial and municipal sectors, MT Lab has a mission to host fledgling entrepreneurs from Quebec, Canada and abroad in the tourism, transport, festivals, culture, hotel, restaurant and entertainment sectors.

European carrier and cloud-neutral colocation provider Interxion has revealed that its upcoming data center in Stockholm will become one of the first to harness the benefits of Stockholm Data Parks.

The Stockholm Data Parks initiative was officially launched in January, supported by the government of the city and several local utility companies. It aims to offer power, connectivity and cooling services to potential data center builders, with four parcels of land earmarked for development.

FREDERICTON – A New Brunswick startup is launching its technology across the Atlantic this week at a global business event.

Fredericton-based Turret Psychoanalytics, a company that uses big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to create customer market data and leads for businesses, will be at the CeBit conference and exhibition in Hannover, Germany. CeBit is an international conference for digital business with around 3,000 exhibitors and 2,000 keynote speakers and lecturers. Turret Psychoanalytics is only one of two Canadian companies slated to exhibit.