I’m always amazed at how Israelis can do so well raising money or selling stuff abroad with such poor English. Especially people, like angels who are trusting high-tech people with their money; angels are very picky when it comes to deciding with whom to invest money, and they make judgements based on all sorts of criteria that are more impression than fact (I got this from more than one angel).

So imagine my shock when an angel investor who has put money in a number of companies – ie he is a person of some means – makes a presentation in front of about 100 people, and in his slide show puts up a cute picture of a bear, with this caption:

“a vision without an action is mearly a dream”

Just looking at that sentence I can find five things wrong with it (“mearly” is the least of it!). This is a person who interfaces with lots of American and European investors, and you have to figure that if he could make such a mistake in a presentation he had to prepare for (he was invited, planned out his presentation, used PowerPoint to make the show, etc.), he’s probably making mistakes in spelling and grammar left and right!

Okay, maybe the guy was in a hurry. But what about the many websites I see by Israeli companies with atrocious English? Like this, from a website for a company that is a fairly large player in Israeli commercial VoIP (ie supplies equipment and services to many integrators):

Telephony and telephony related systems based on Voice over IP (Voip) technology had reached the stage in which it could be used in any business in order to reach maximum efficiency. . Voip based soft-switches as well as small office PBX’s are becoming to be the natural choice for businesses all over the world, supplying its owners with a vast variety of telephony functions without the burdening expenses and costs of the old ‘traditional’ analog phone systems.

Besides being boring, that text has several grammatical errors. It’s on their website, as part of their “window to the world.” And there are plenty of sites with much worse texts which are obviously translations of their Hebrew sites (some of them look like they ran the Hebrew through Google Translate and forgot to clean it up). If they’re not careful with the way they present themselves to the world, are they going to be careful with you, the customer?

As of Saturday night, Israelis are able to bring iPads into the country. The Communications Ministry has apparently decided that the wifi system in the iPad is not a danger to the security channels, as apparently had been thought originally.

So what happened? How does a “security problem” magically turn into a non-issue? Perhaps it was the heavy and embarrassing media coverage; or maybe they realized that indeed, as I reported, several Apple products that are already sold here already contain the problematic Broadcom chip that was at the root of the problem.

Whatever – the bottom line is that what could have turned into a boon for Apple’s Israel importer, iDigital, will now be working to its disadvantage, because it’s likely to be months before Apple is ready to supply international markets with iPads. Now anyone who wants an iPad can either peg a friend to bring one in for them. Or, they can order one from Mustop, which can get the basic wifi model one for $660, with all taxes and shipping paid. Too bad for Chemi Peres, son of Shimon Peres and the head of iDigital!

Oy vey. Once again Israeli buyers of a hip gadget are about to get ripped off – with the “authorities” doing everything they can to make sure they get “theirs” (as in their money) out of the pockets of the schnook customer.

I know it sounds cynical, but it’s the only logical explanation I can come up with for why the Communications Ministry is banning iPads from Israel. In this age of instant communications, fast and efficient shipping, and open markets (ie nearly zero customs duties), getting a device like an iPad should be a piece of cake. For example, at this site, with shipping costs and taxes, you would be able to have a $499 iPad delivered directly from Apple in the U.S. to any Israeli address for $660 – a pretty reasonable price.

But like with so many other items (coincidentally, mostly from Apple), the markup is going to be much higher, because “they” are going to do their best to prevent customers from getting reasonably priced iPads – basically forcing Israelis who want one to get it from the local Apple license-holder (the iDigital retail store, which is NOT an Apple store!) for a premium price, just like they did with the iPhone. The difference is that the iPhone was a lot easier to hide, so the customs people have a much better chance of nabbing iPads when people try to smuggle them in!

So why can’t you bring an iPad into the country? According to this article in Ha’aretz (the same story appeared in numerous Hebrew publications),

the decision follows the refusal of the ministry’s engineering staff to compromise on testing the device’s suitability and compliance with Israeli wireless networks… For now, the ministry has not given the device categorical approval required for wireless devices; and ministry officials say its wireless technology is not compatible with Israeli standards.

“The iPad device sold exclusively today in the United States operates at broadcast power levels [over its Wifi modem] compatible with American standards,” explained the officials. “As the Israeli regulations in the area of Wifi are similar to European standards, which are different from American standards, which permit broadcasting at lower power, therefore the broadcast levels of the device prevent approving its use in Israel,” said the officials.

Huh? Doesn’t the whole world – U.S. and Europe included – use IEEE 802.11 Wifi standards? Aren’t there all sorts of Wifi-based devices produced all over the world that can be used internationally? What do they mean by “broadcast levels?”

Here’s the picture I have been able to put together – and it ain’t a pretty one. Without getting too technical: The Wifi chipset used by the iPad is BroadComm’s BCM4329 Low-Power 802.11n with Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR and FM (Tx and Rx). 80211N is a relatively new addition to 802.11 standards, and it’s relatively rare in Wifi devices, so far. The fact that it is “low power” is also apparently behind complaints by many users that the iPad drops out of networks more readily than other devices, like Macbooks. This chipset includes Wifi and FM radio reception and transmission capabilities (in order to allow you to, for example, use your car FM radio to listen to music from your device while driving).

So, it’s possible that this is what the engineers meant when they said there were “different standards,” although 802.11n is in use in Europe as well. It would seem to me that they main bugaboo here is the chipset’s ability to broadcast, usually frowned upon in Israel.

But here’s what gives the game away: The BroadComm BCM4329 chipset is the SAME ONE in use in the latest editions of the iPhone and the iPad Touch – both of which are sold right here in Israel, by iDigital! Get it? If the problem is the Wifi chipset, then what difference does it make if it’s installed in an iPhone, iPod, or iPad? None! It only makes a difference to someone (or some entity) that has an interest in carving out for itself as much of a monopoly as they can get away with!

Now, I’m no engineer, but I do know how to Google – and it took me about 45 minutes to come up with this data (the things I go through for you people!). But certainly one would expect engineers from the Communications Ministry to have put two and two together and realized that they had already approved use of this Wifi chipset in Israel! If I could figure it out, they could too.

The thing is, there is no one to lobby for approving the iPad, no one to point this out to – and now that the engineers have made their decision, any change is going to have to go through “channels.” And where will those channels channel through? Why, right through iDigital, the Israeli “experts” on all things Apple. And what do you think iDigital is going to say when asked if they recommend unfettered importation of an item they are planning to sell eventually, for more money of course? I may be a cynic, but I know how the game is played!

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• iPad has same Broadcom BCM4329 FM Tx/Rx radio capabilities as iPhone, iPod touch (9to5mac.com)
• Apple delays international iPad launch by one month (network.nationalpost.com)

I saw this story about Israel’s supposed efforts to recruit Arabs in Gaza for spy work via Facebook, and following the tried and true principle of “it takes one to know one,” began wondering what the “other side” is using Facebook for. Using the services of my old buddy Google Translate, I started checking various likely terms on Facebook (in Arabic) to see what I could come up with. And what do you know – on the very first Facebook page in Arabic I scrounged up is a tale of hatred, misunderstanding – and sheer stupidity!

The hatred in question is that of “the Arabs” (or at least 465 of them) for Jews. Not Israel, because Israel has nothing to do with this page, which is dedicated to trashing the URL shortener Bit.ly – for “celebrating” Chanukah!

Here’s the unbelievable story, via the Google translation of the home page of the Facebook group called “No Bit.ly” So what did Bit.ly due to get on the Arab boycott list? It seems that the Bit.ly people used a graphic that looks vaguely like a dreidel (sevivon), I suppose around Chanuka time. On the graphic can be seen more clearly the Hebrew letters hay and shin, which is indeed found on dreidels. Like this:

Here is, as Google translates it, what the Facebook fan page gives as its reason for existence:

Anas surprised the site shortcut links to add the famous Bit.ly the form of a strange character written on Abbarip symbolize the Jewish holiday that is named the “Chanukah” or “candlestick.” In response to this step, a group of young people create a page of solidarity on Facebook to boycott the site “bit.ly” and noted that this was due to “the herds of settlers attempted to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque, and they set up flags and Jewish symbols on the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem Jews are trying through breeding history H Muhom in Jerusalem, according to Al-Aqsa Foundation for the stop and heritage.

So I get that they don’t like Israel or “settlers,” but what do they have against Chanukah? Doesn’t this give the lie to the constant Arab claims that they are not anti-Jewish, but only anti-Zionist? In modern times, Chanuka is, at least in the West, the most “domesticated” of Jewish holidays, having been denuded of much of its meaning in order to fit in with “the spirit of the season.” I mean, even diehard leftists like Peter, Paul and Mary wrote a song about it,  stressing its “universal message!” No Zionism here, folks – just a Jewish holiday, and the boycott by these folks shows that it’s not just Israel they hate, but Jews as well.

Unfortunately for these jerks, their boycott of Bit.ly (which is located in New York City and has, according to its About page, a staff made up of Jews, Christians, and Muslims – not a “Zionist” Israeli in sight) drove them to come up with alternative URL shorteners, listed on the link area of the Facebook fan page. Well, checking out the alternatives they listed, I noticed that there is one that was developed – in Israel! Which one? That’s for me to know and for them to find out! Talk about shooting themselves in the foot – they boycotted a service that has absolutely nothing to do with Israel, because they hate Israel, and they end up helping Israel!!!

Interestingly, some Jews on Facebook have a problem with Bit.ly as well. The Avid Editor says in his/her blog (it’s also discussed at the Creeping Sharia blog) that using Bit.ly supports Jihad. Huh? Well, it seems that the .LY domain is the one used in Libya, “which is a Jihadi state.” By registering and using a .LY domain, part of the company’s domain name registration fee is going to fill the coffers of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, as it is popularly known. As Creeping Sharia says,

Bit.ly’s only doing a trivial amount of business with Libya – the domains sell for $75 per year from the registrar Libyan Spider Network – but its use of .LY domain is helping to popularize and legitimize the top-level domain for general use on the Internet.

What to do? Boycott Bit.ly, says AE, especially because Bit.ly is now the default URL shortener for Twitter. Using Bit.ly, AE says,

comes at the cost of your soul IMHO. It is supporting jihadist and the terrorist state Libya. So write to anyone that still uses this service and the people that make it a default on twitter clients.

I’m starting to feel for the Bit.ly folks. The Arabs don’t like Bit.ly, and neither do the Jews (what ever happened to “the enemy of my enemy is my friend?”)! Can we get some Christians, Hindus and Buddhists to weigh in here too?

As I predicted, and as my prediction has borne out, the iPad won’t be coming to Israel for a long time – officially, that is (they say maybe at the end of the year…). But thanks to some enterprising Israelis, you can get an iPad right now – a used iPad, to boot, even though the thing has been on the market for three days!

This miracle comes to you courtesy of Israel’s premier second-hand site, Yad-2, where you can buy used electronic equipment, TVs, cars, even apartments – and now, iPads! There are currently about two dozen iPads up for sale on the Yad-2 site, apparently purchased by enterprising Israelis (or their agents) when the thing went up for sale (I imagine that the iPads are currently sold out in retail stores, and shipping from Apple takes about two weeks at this point). The prices for these “used” iPads range between NIS 2800 for the cheapest 16GB version – $756, not too bad of a markup from the $499 it costs at Apple stores – to NIS 4,700 ($1,270) for the $699 64GB version. Expensive, but still cheaper than paying for a ticket to the States, taking a cab or train to the Apple store, standing on line, having lunch at some mall eatery, doing some “extra” shopping, and coming back home.

About the iPad itself I have nothing to say, since it has all been said by every talking head out there already. Suffice to say I’m very happy with my Macbooks and my smart phone, so I’m probably not going to be an iPad early adopter. But you never know.

I did, however, notice some interesting phenomena associated with the iPad that I would like to share. Were I in the market to buy one, I would usually buy an item like an iPad at Amazon, which has free shipping, no tax, and easy return policies. Right now, though, you can’t buy an iPad at Amazon – they’re not being offered there yet.

Or is “yet” the right term? Usually, Amazon usually takes pre-orders for every new gimcrack and gizmo (especially those from Apple) – but there’s not a hint of iPad availability, now or in the future, at Amazon. Is it because Apple is keeping iPads “in the family” – ie only at Apple retail stores and, I guess, at AT&T stores when the 3G version comes out (a la the iPhone) – or is it because Amazon is taking seriously the iPad’s potential to compete with, and probably eventually outsell, the Kindle?

Here’s something really interesting: The domain, ipad.com, is NOT owned by Apple! It instead belongs to, according to Alexa, one Martine Bejasa of South Fork, New Jersey, and is copyrighted by the Enero 6 Corporation. There is much speculation in the blogosphere on the nature of this Enero 6 (Enero is January in Spanish), with some attributing it to an in-joke by Steve Jobs, who has historically made some major Apple announcements on January 6. However, there really is no need to speculate; the New Jersey phone number of Mr/Ms. Bejasa is listed on his/her domain information page.*

A quick Google search of the name shows that Martine is a real person and has owned the iPad.com domain name since 2001. Considering that Apple owns all the other domain names associated with their products – iPod.com, iPhone.com, and Mac.com (but oddly, not Macbook.com), Mr/Ms. Bejasa could be in for a big Apple payday!

*NOTE – I checked the info on the actual Alexa page and it seems to have been changed. But I still get the original info -with the phone number – using my Alexa plugin for Firefox. Which means I could actually call Mr/Ms. Bejasa to clarify this – but I’m not such an iPad fanatic. If anyone wants to scoop the blogosphere, here’s your chance!

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• How much does a $499 iPad cost Apple to make? About $259.60, says 1 research firm (taragana.com)
• Apple Sold 300,000 iPads on Launch Day. Most Buyers Owned Macs (shoppingblog.com)
• Why the iPad actually strengthens Amazon’s position (guardian.co.uk)
• 10 Obvious Things Amazon’s Next Kindle Will Do To Compete With The iPad (AMZN, AAPL) (businessinsider.com)