As if we didn’t have enough to worry about in the first life! Although in a recent interview I did with Efraim Zuroff of the Israel branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, nobody pays attention to “real” Nazis, the ISOC – a very respectable organization – has found it necessary to address nazism in Second Life, and the meeting will discuss a demand by Israeli users of the platform to ban nazi symbols, uniforms, and group. According to the e-mail I got, the “Israelis” in Second Life have been demanding that the site close down a virtual uniform store which sells uniforms of different nations and time periods – including Nazi uniforms. The store claims that it’s only interest in historical period pieces, but the protesters say it’s just a front for Second Life Nazis to buy paraphernalia. At it’s meeting, ISOC will discuss the ramifications of asking to censor a virtual world.
Naturally, this was too good a story not to pursue – and at this site, I found a full dossier on the Second Life Nazis. Known as the “Furzis,” the group operated a Second Life store which sold Nazi “memorabilia” and banned Second Life Jews. The whole story was documented by the “Jewish Defense League of Second Life” at their site, which managed to get the Second Life admins to close the store down (because it was violating SL’s TOS by promoting hate). As the site says,
“Whether they are white, black or arab antisemites, we have remained vigilant in our efforts to free SL from intolerance, and have also grown in numbers.”
So they got them on a violation of TOS. If only things were that easy in “First Life!” But based on the e-mail I got from ISOC, the Nazis (perhaps no longer in the form of furballs) seem to have returned. The SLJDL recommends all users who observe this kind of behavior to nudge the SL admins.
BTW – did you know there was a magazine specifically dedicated to “Jewish Second Life?” Check it out at http://www.2lifemagazine.com/. Lots of interesting stuff, about Jewish life and culture – except it’s virtual. And all this time, I thought Second Life was just another dumb game!
Cynics would say it’s about time Microsoft released a free anti-virus program – after all, aren’t most of the viruses that infect Windows systems the result of the all too easy to bust registry?
But we’ll leave aside the politics of the registry for now. What I like about the new, free Microsoft Security Essentials is that it was developed right here in Israel! As of today (June 23), the package is available for download (I found a link for all versions here, but by Wednesday it should be on the official MS security page).
The download is free, and available for now to users in the U.S., Israel, and Brazil. According to a bunch of articles I read, the reasoning is that the U.S. has lots of computers, Israel is where it was developed, and Brazil has lots of infected computers, so the feedback will help MS improve the product. It’s not exactly an anti-virus suite like Norton or the others, but it’s good at nabbing trojans and viruses in e-mail and downloads.
At a press conference, Moshe Lichtman, the director of Microsoft Development in Israel, unveiled not only the antivirus program, but 13 other innovations the Israeli unit came up with, including a new version of Messenger for dual computer/cellphone use, that will display messages on the phone as SMS messages, and as regular Messenger messages on the computer – automatically.
Microsoft’s Israel labs have had a long tradition of innovating killer products for the company. Like – developing much of Windows NT (the precursor of Win2k and XP)! From an article I wrote a couple of years ago, where I tried to ascertain Israel’s role in the creation of Windows:
After lots of Web surfing, I decided to give Microsoft Israel a call. Apparently, they get this question a lot; the very pleasant young lady I spoke with said that “Parts of Windows NT were definitely developed in Israel,” but that she could not specify which ones – other than to say they were “probably” mostly “security related.” Security, of course, was NT’s biggest selling point, so this young lady may have said more than she meant to. Hmm. On the other hand, she seemed to indicate that NT, as all of Microsoft’s products are, was a team effort, with different research groups working on different parts of the program.
Which would mean that Israel, although perhaps an important contributor, did not necessarily develop “most” of NT or XP. I was ready to take that as the situation, in fact – attributing the statement on the poster to overenthusiastic Israel-loving (not that there’s anything wrong with that) – until I came across this site (http://tinyurl.com/nwe5w), a technical site that made this statement, in the context of a computer show it was covering in Tel Aviv: “Microsoft also announced Windows NT Embedded which is to be released this year and is being developed at Microsoft R&D centre in Haifa, here in Israel.” Well, if they developed NT Embedded, why not NT itself?
Yes, the iPhone is coming to Israel, but I wouldn’t get too excited – unless you like overpaying and getting stuck with what’s probably going to be a whopper of a voice/data plan. If I know the Israeli phone companies, customers who buy the iPhone from the carriers – Orange Israel (Partner Communications) and Pelephone – are going to be paying… and paying… and paying some more!
How do I know? Because that’s just the way things work here. Israeli cell phone companies don’t give out any free lunches – or free phones. Unlike in America, where they give you a phone for nothing (or for a very nominal cost) when you sign up for a plan. Here, you have to buy the phone, for full price – and then some!
Yes, you can pay it off in 36 payments, at NIS 29 a month. So what. Even over three years at 21% interest, with minimum monthly payments, it comes out a little cheaper buying it from Amazon!
But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that this phone is an OLD phone (old in “cellphone age,” that is). It was announced almost a year ago and went on sale last fall (2008). That’s why it’s marked down at Amazon from its $319.99 original price (the original Orange price was correspondingly higher, too). Here, Orange isn’t selling this phone unlocked; it expects you to use it for the next three years, and is treating it like a premium/top of the technology product! Not that there’s anything wrong with this Sony model (we have several Sony phones and they’ve all been great). But why do we have to pay top shekel for older phones that they’re giving away for nothing in the U.S.? Correction – they’re not even giving away that phone anymore; it’s too old! The phones they’re giving away are phones like the Blackberry Curve 8900, the LG CU920, and the Samsung i637. Just for signing up for a plan!
So how much do you think they’re going to want for the latest top of the line iPhone? Answer: It doesn’t matter. Given the history of phone costs in Israel, I predict that regardless of what they decide to charge (note that iDigital, the Israel Apple reseller – which is NOT an Apple Store – is buying the phones from Apple and reselling them), it will be cheaper to spend the $100 on the iPhone in the States, sign up for a month of AT&T service and then pay the cancellation fee ($175) plus other various and sundry costs!
P.S.: There’s much more to say about taking the cell phone service providers taking top shekel for outmoded cellphones; the biggest scam has to be how the companies bought up old analog cellphones for pennies, rebranded them, and sold them for ridiculous amounts of money to Haredim as “kosher” phones. But that’s for another post!
Uri Geller may or may not be a phony, but thanks to Israel’s TrixCell, anyone can pull a Geller – using their cell phones! Trixcell’s latest digital trick is so cool, it’s even better than the one where your cell phone spews out money – a trick that got Trixcell nominated for a Meffy!
I see by the look on your face that I am going to have to explain that last paragraph! It’s actually very simple: Trixcell makes “magic tricks” you can use on your cellphone. Yep, you read that right! In one of their tricks, for example – called Pyro – you get a picture of a fire on your screen. Blow on it – and the fire goes out! But even better: After you’ve blown the fire out, “relight” the screen, and pass it around to others – and watch them huff and puff, trying to put out a fire that just won’t go away!
A digital coin is trapped inside the phone. It acts realistically and moves in sync as you tilt, shake and rotate the phone. A final jolt kicks the coin out of the screen, causing it to materialize as a real coin in your hand!
So how do they work? What, you expected a magician to give away his secrets? I met the guys behind Trixcell - Shlomi Grandes and Menny Lindenfeld, the latter a world famous magician – when I interviewed them for an Israel21c article earlier this year.
In another trick previewed for me by Grandes, CEO of TrixCell (which he said would be great to use for bar bets) I was asked to think about one of four alcoholic beverages I preferred – beer, whiskey, martini, or wine. And – you guessed it! In about three minutes, Grandes guessed my preference, with the drink being virtually drained as he spoke. Repeat performances didn’t change the result, by the way – Grandes batted 100%, guessing my choice each time!
And then there’s that spoon-bending trick, a la Uri Geller – you concentrate, stare at the screen, and watch the piece of cutlery of your choice (knife, spoon, fork, etc.) as it bends! Check out this video!
Now, Trixcell has been nominated for a Meffy – a top award from the Mobile Entertainment Forum, in the category of best content of the year. Considering the cellphone giants nominated along with TrixCell (see the list), this is quite an accomplishment!
Now, everyone loves a magic trick, as anyone who has ever seen a streetcorner magician knows. So, getting a TrixCell trick puts you in a very cool category! So what can you do with this new power? The sky’s the limit – take bar bets, for example, and make some drink money. Just be ready to run for it if you hoodwink the wrong person and they decide to demand a “refund.” Grandes, though, is a lover, not a fighter – according to him, the TrixCell tricks are a great way to hook up with that “special someone,” impressing him/her and breaking the ice. A cellphone application that makes love happen – now, that’s real magic!
Whether it means something politically or economically, I can’t say – but something fundamental has apparently changed in the Israeli attitude to the dollar. In the old days, dollars were seen as the ultimate hedge against shekel inflation (many apartment renters used to have to pay a year’s rent up front, in dollars!), but now, apparently, respect for the greenback is at an all time low. How else do you explain it when discount supermarkets are using dollars as a sales gimmick?
In Israel, groceries aren’t cheap (although not necessarily overly expensive), but you really don’t want to stock up if you’re paying full price. So, you wait for a sale, and then you buy in quantity. Each chain has its own sale “style” – buy one or two items and get one free, coupons, cash back on a credit card, etc. Smart shoppers can sometimes reduce their food bill by 10% – 20% through savvy use of the discounting system, hopping from store to store looking for bargains.
That means there’s little brand loyalty for supermarket chains in Israel, and the stores know it; they realize that price trumps convenience, prizes, or green stamps for most customers. So, they run a sale when they want to drum up business. And this is the story of one of those sales.
Not far from my house there’s a branch of a chain called Victory. Some chains go for an affluent crowd (they usually open in more affluent neighborhoods), but Victory generally sticks to the “periphery,” catering largely to Russian immigrants and working class Israelis, from what I can tell. No matter – everyone wants a bargain, and since we were in the area, we decided to check out some of their bargains.
The deal this time was unlike any I have ever seen in Israel: On a wide range of goods, you paid full price, but at checkout time, you got a cash refund – in U.S. dollars! Not the dollar equivalent in shekels, but real live actual dollars! With the dollar hovering around NIS 4 these days, that meant a discount of about 4 shekels on the participating products. The photo, for example, says you get a dollar back if you buy three packages of marshmallows. Each package is 6 shekels, so you end up paying 14 shekels for the three – a discount of a little less than 20% on each package, by my reckoning. Not too bad, but there were a lot of really good buys, with some prices halved, taking into account the dollar deal. Altogether, we got $22 U.S. dollars after everything was added up – about 80 shekels – off a total bill of 550 shekels (they didn’t look like phonies, either).
If you ask me, it’s a genius move! Israelis like to travel (especially to Turkey), so you figure some of them are going to use their “earnings” at the duty free on their way out of town this summer, while others who can’t afford to go anywhere get to feel like “big shots,” with a couple of greenbacks in their pocket (they can also take their dollars to one of the numerous currency exchange places and get shekels). It’s certainly a different promotion, at least for supermarkets. Victory probably bought the dollars last week, when the exchange rate was lower, so they aren’t discounting as much in shekels as they would if they were running a straight sale. And those who hold on to their dollars could technically get an even bigger discount long term, if the dollar strengthens to NIS 4.10 or 4.20 again.
But once upon a time, only affluent Israelis – and of course, “rich Americans” – walked around with dollars. A reflection of the power of the word “America,” and all that stands (stood?) behind it. And now dollars have been reduced to a supermarket gimmick, the equivalent of a throwaway coupon. The “American century” may not be over just yet, but is the dollar’s?
I was never a good writer. Not the kind of writing that you read to get information from (that kind of writing I’m not too bad at). I mean the kind of writing where you take a pen and start jotting things down on paper. Suffice to say that when I was in seventh grade “they” sent me to the school psychologist because my handwriting was so bad.
Nowadays, except for signing checks and the like, I do all my writing via the keyboard. For me, it’s not a choice – nobody would be able to read anything I wrote on a pen and paper anyway! And now, after so many years of keyboarding, I’ve practically lost the penmanship skills I ever had anyway!
But for normal people who know what to do with pen and paper, there’s an Israeli invention that lets them digitalize what they’ve written. Pegasus Mobile Note Taker, you can take notes anywhere and on anything, and automatically have it transformed into text, editable in MS Word and the like! Note Taker doesn’t scan your writing, but actually converts what you write into text. And while there are plenty of digital pads and pens out there that can do the same thing, the chidush here is that you can use regular paper – pads, notebooks, or wherever you take notes.
That sounds cool enough, but if you already have your laptop on the table, why would you want to take notes on a pad using a regular notebook? Seems as if it would be easier to just type directly into the computer! Ah, but Note Taker goes beyond the screen; you can connect the device not just to a computer, but to a cell device too – via Bluetooth! So, if you have a smartphone, you don’t need to shlep a laptop to meetings – just turn your phone and your Note Taker on, start writing, and your text will get recorded as a document in your cell device, for later uploading to your computer!
That in an of itself makes Note Taker extremely useful. But I thought of something even better: Besides a small piece of hardware that you connect to your pad, the system includes OCR software that automatically reads and converts your writing into onscreen text. But it works with graphics as well – so if you’re an artist who draws on paper or even canvas, you can automatically digitize your artwork while you work, with a digital copy of your canvas masterpiece on-screen. Thinking about this aspect of Note Taker’s capability, I got a good business idea for artists – professional or even aspiring:
Paint something good and get the original of your work into an art gallery or even public institution somewhere, and then sell digital prints of your masterpiece that’s hanging in, for example, city hall! You can appeal to civic pride of town residents, who no doubt would be motivated to buy a reasonably priced copy of a work that graces one of their fine city’s prestigious institutions. Plus, if you’ve donated the original work, you get credit for your public mindedness – always a marketing plus! Set up a website promoting your work and put together an e-mail marketing campaign to reach your customers; as orders come in, you can print out your work one piece at a time, saving money on the up front investment you usually have to make in producing copies of artwork. Find a printer, make a deal on production, and you’re on your way to fame and fortune!
You’ve probably tried out CamSpace, the Israeli “Wii Killer” that lets you interact with your computer screen without a mouse or keyboard – just using your body. And if you haven’t, shame on you, because you didn’t read my great article about it at Israel21c. CamSpace is still maturing, but already you can play dozens of games that let you be “in” the game, waving your hand around while playing tennis, boxing, playing Donkey Kong type games, etc.
Well, it turns out there’s yet another Israeli company working in this space – and its technology is apparently going to be at the heart of Microsoft’s Project Natal which will be included in future Xbox editions. According to Engadget, Israel’s 3DV Systems’ ZCam, which
“is at the size of a typical webcam, and provides home users revolutionary gesture recognition capabilities in addition to real-time background replacement, enabling them to control video games and personal space through intuitive body gestures and immerse themselves with virtual reality”
will be the piece of hardware Natal uses to connect users to the their screens!
The ZCam is actually a hybrid between the Wii’s approach and the CamSpace approach (but closer to CamSpace); using dedicated motion detection hardware and software like the Wii does (CamSpace is software and works with any web cam), with a full body orientation like Camspace allows, instead of just limiting you to interactivity with the remote control, like the Wii. According to Engadget,
“Project Natal really couldn’t be further from the Wii when it comes to motion controls. Instead of representing potentially arbitrary controller motions and gestures, Microsoft has its sights set on capturing the motion of the entire body. The technology is certainly impressive, combining an infrared camera and traditional camera to capture motion and 3D location in with glorious resolution and responsiveness — from furious full body flailing to the subtle motion of an imaginary steering wheel, gas pedal and gear shifter.”
And that camera combination will apparently be coming to you courtesy of Israeli startup 3DV Systems. Apparently a deal for MS to buy 3DV has been or is about to be completed, and it’s possible the first ZCams (or whatever they evolve into) will show up in Xboxes next year.
While everyone (here, at least) is talking about how Barack Obama “stuck it” to Israel, there were a few lines in his speech that must have unnerved the Islamic radicals. Like the man said – he plans to tell the truth to everyone who needs to hear it, and that includes things like rights for women in the Muslim world, fighting terrorism, and demanding an end to anti-Semitism, especially Holocaust denial. All three of these phenomena are (pardon the term) “sacred cows” for many Muslims (Holocaust denial goes far beyond Iran), and we should expect Obama to lean on Islamic countries and leaders for change in these areas, as much as he appears ready to lean on Israel to make a deal with Mahmoud Abbas and company.
So just how will this “leaning” take place? What could Obama do to convince anti-Israel and anti-Semitic states to change their ways, which have been set in centuries of tradition (long before there was a State of Israel)? He could start with the health situation in the Muslim world, and just how far behind Israel even the more advanced Muslim states, like Iran, really are. For example, Iranians are among the world’s biggest sufferers of diabetes – about one-third of adults in Tehran have disturbed glucose tolerance or diabetes, according to a 9500-person study last year, and the problem is prevalent throughout the country. Many Tehran residents are obese, and there is a history of both Type I (Juvenile) and Type II diabetes in many families.
Israel, on the other hand, is one of the world leaders in diabetes research, and Israeli research has contributed to a number of treatments used to combat diabetes in Iran. For example, Israel’s D-Cure program has been operating for several years, coordinating research efforts at Israel’s top institutions. “In many fields in diabetes research, Israel is leading the world – in looking for islet cells, and alternatives to beta cells,” said D-Cure president Prof. Itamar Raz, who is also president of the Israel Diabetes Association and head of the Diabetes Center at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem. Among the topics researched by D-Cure are cures and treatments related to both Type 1 and II diabetes. An Israeli innovation – the Oramed Insulin Capsule is an orally ingestible soft gel insulin capsule that the company believes will help Type II diabetics reduce the dependency on insulin shots and even prevent them from needing them at a later stage of the disease – is being tested now and will revolutionize treatment for Type II sufferers when approved.
And Israel’s Andromeda Biotech is about to embark on a phase III clinical trial of one of the most promising potential cures for Type I diabetes in the world, DiaPep 277, a synthetic peptide of 24 amino acids derived from the sequence of the human heat shock protein 60 (Hsp60). Heat shock protein therapies are considered among the best possibilities for a diabetes cure, and Iran has conducted its own research in these areas – often treading the ground broken by Israeli scientists! Interestingly, a link describing such research at an Iranian university has been taken down – fortunately, it’s available as Google archive. Was it taken down because the Hsp60 research is so clearly connected to Israel?
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As if we didn’t have enough to worry about in the first life! Although in a recent interview I did with Efraim Zuroff of the Israel branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, nobody pays attention to “real” Nazis, the ISOC – a very respectable organization – has found it necessary to address nazism in Second Life, and the meeting will discuss a demand by Israeli users of the platform to ban nazi symbols, uniforms, and group. According to the e-mail I got, the “Israelis” in Second Life have been demanding that the site close down a virtual uniform store which sells uniforms of different nations and time periods – including Nazi uniforms. The store claims that it’s only interest in historical period pieces, but the protesters say it’s just a front for Second Life Nazis to buy paraphernalia. At it’s meeting, ISOC will discuss the ramifications of asking to censor a virtual world.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=95b3e46b-a7fe-4ba7-9437-d06021d204de)
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That sounds cool enough, but if you already have your laptop on the table, why would you want to take notes on a pad using a regular notebook? Seems as if it would be easier to just type directly into the computer! Ah, but Note Taker goes beyond the screen; you can connect the device not just to a computer, but to a cell device too – via Bluetooth! So, if you have a smartphone, you don’t need to shlep a laptop to meetings – just turn your phone and your Note Taker on, start writing, and your text will get recorded as a document in your cell device, for later uploading to your computer!![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3dea3b84-1e50-4823-96dc-cec99f49e700)
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So just how will this “leaning” take place? What could Obama do to convince anti-Israel and anti-Semitic states to change their ways, which have been set in centuries of tradition (![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=497f52fe-896c-4025-8227-2c20e090fdb2)
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