Usually, mixing business with politics isn’t such a good idea if you’re trying to sell somebody something. You never know whom you’re going to offend, and the customer (and cash) is king.
But if you’re just giving away your product, I guess politics can play a role – maybe a big one. That’s definitely the philosophy of Zvi Schreiber, CEO of G.ho.st. When you hold an opening event at a gap in the security fence (“separation wall”) separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem, you’re wading ankle deep in one of the hottest political issues in the region.
That’s exactly what Schreiber did, launching the final beta version of his G.ho.st virtual operating system at “this symbol of division,” according to special guest Tony Blair, who added “I’ve done many launches in my life, but this ranks as about the most unusual.”
With G.ho.st, users can store up to 15 gigs of files, and use an office suite with their files, browse the internet, and access their e-mail from any computer in the world. User accounts are stored in the “cloud,” the one run by Amazon, and you can log into your G.ho.st account anywhere.
Why the security fence? Because most of the programming for G.ho.st is being done by programmers who live in Ramallah! G.ho.st’s corporate offices are in Israel proper, but Schreiber has outsourced almost all of the G.ho.st architecture work to programmers in the Palestinian Authority (according to what he told me). “I’m perhaps the only CEO in the world who can’t visit the company’s main office, even though it’s like 15 kilometers my house in Jerusalem,” Schreiber said at the event.
In my interview with him, Schreiber described how staff meetings are held in a gas station near Jericho. “We’ve even had company meetings there, since it’s the only place we can get together that both sets of employees can get to,” he said. But it’s worth it, he added; “I’ve always wanted to make a contribution to coexistence, and a high-tech firm with offices in Israel and the PA seemed like a good way to do it.”
What to make of G.ho.st? The question come up because there are those who are accusing G.ho.st of “exploitation” in the guise of “promoting coexistence.” Why? Schreiber says his PA programmers are well compensated – “I’m not aware of any other company in the PA that gives out options to its employees,” Schreiber told me – but for sure the salaries those benefits are based on are going to be significantly less than he would pay to Israeli employees.
In that sense, Schreiber has succeeded in replacing Bangalore with Ramallah. If you think there’s nothing wrong with exporting jobs to the Far East, then there’s nothing wrong with exporting jobs to the Palestinian Authority; if you believe employers have a responsibility to their national entities and the citizens of the country that afforded them the opportunity to be in a position to employ others, then you have a problem with G.ho.st.
In addition, because the Palestinians are such bitter enemies of Israel, some would argue that Schreiber is wrong on two counts: One, he’s providing jobs to Palestinians who want to see us dead (or maybe just deported), and two, he’s exporting jobs that Israelis would be happy to do during these recessionary times.
According to this AFP article, most of the Ramallah employees work for a third of the pay of their Israeli counterparts. Quoting Dror Globerman of Ma’ariv, the article says:
“I think the incentives are definitely there. (The West Bank) is cheap and close, and Palestinian engineers are talented people.”
So it’s all about the money for G.ho.st – or is it? The AFP article goes on to say:
However, the persistent threat of political instability still encourages most Israeli entrepreneurs to look to calmer parts of the globe. “No one can guarantee that a Palestinian engineer will always be able to reach his office or have an Internet connection,” Dror says. “Israelis are used to having these fears addressed to them by foreign investors.”
In other words, Ramallah is not Bangalore. Given the volatile political and security situation, work could be suspended due to an IDF action in response to a terror attack at any time, or (probably more likely) a shootout between Hamas and Fatah troops near the G.ho.st offices. (Given the rampant crime in the PA, I wonder if Schreiber has to pay protection money to criminal gangs – or the “official” police - in order to be left alone? See, that’s a question you can’t ask a CEO!). For dealing with those issues, Schreiber deserves a lot of credit.
And G.ho.st fits right in with Binyamin Netanyahu’s declared desire to help the PA economically – the idea being that once Palestinians get a taste of the “good life” in Israel, they’ll have a strong incentive to play peace ball. That there is something to this is clear when you speak to Arabs in Wadi Ara (as I did) about what they think of proposals to move the border and rope them into Palestinian Authority controlled areas.
So what do you think the Palestinians think about all this? Do they feel “colonialized” or “exploited” by Schreiber? Not according to this article by Ma’an, the official PA news agency.
The project, three years in the making, was funded by the Benchmark Capital Fund and Noa Rothman’s foundation, and hired Palestinian and Israeli developers trained in local universities to push forward the development.
“It was a program aiming to bring some of the prosperity and skills to Palestinians that have brought success to the Israeli [IT] industry,” one organizer said.
The program’s launch, in front of Israel’s separation wall in the Bethlehem-area town of Beit Jala, focused on the potential of creativity and economic development for the creation of a stable future for both Israel and Palestine.
Of course, there was the requisite paragraph afterwards on how there needs to be a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders and the return of descendants of refugees, etc. etc. But it sounds to me like Ma’an knows a good thing when it sees it. As the AFP article quotes Ramallah office director Khaled Ayyash as saying:
“We are creating jobs, we are getting good salaries, and we can work here in Palestine instead of going abroad.”
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?
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!
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?
Israeli hi-tech may be down – but it certainly isn’t out. That’s the conclusion you would have to reach if you spent time at Tuesday’s Israel Venture Association annual conference. The IVA brings together investors – VC’s and angels – with Israeli companies looking for funding. Over the past couple of years, the organization has been responsible for getting tens of millions in funding for Israeli companies. At the IVA convention, investors and industry folk meet, with the idea that some deals will emerge from the balagan.
While I attended some of the sessions, I found the “startup pavilion” most interesting. While many of the companies presenting in the organized sessions – with sessions on gaming, telecom, cleantech, mobile, and “traditional” areas like semiconductors – were startups too, they were “mature” startups, who were already well funded and, in many cases, already making money. The startups I spoke too were far younger, although some were on the verge of signing contracts (they said) in the areas they specialized in. Some of the more promising ideas: a company that has figured out a way to conduct wide-scale and accurate TV and radio ratings, a better system for oil and water exploration, and an easy way to move pictures between different social network photo sites.
There were also in-depth sessions, as I mentioned, with VC’s choosing companies in their portfolios to present their technology at the show. I went to a couple of them to see the presentations, as did many others. I made sure to check out the Cleantech presentations, sponsored by the California-Israel Chamber of Commerce. Very nice, with discussions of what might be one day great technologies that will save the environment. Of course, with Cleantech a hot area for investments – private and government – the session was jam-packed.
But the discussion was a bit too theoretical for me – lots of “ifs” and “we believes” and “at some point in the futures.” In other words, there are a lot of great ideas and a lot of possibilities – as well as a lot of speculation. A little bored (to tell the truth), I moved on to another session – the one in the next room, called “Semiconductors.”
Well, if I was bored at Cleantech, I’d probably end up taking a nap at Semiconductors! I mean, could there be a drier, less “modern hi-tech” topic for discussion? Apparently, most of the people at the show felt the way I did, because there were barely two dozen people in the room, as opposed to the couple of hundred in the Cleantech room (as well as at the other presentations). As it turned out, though, there was plenty to hear in Semiconductors – plenty of great ideas that are much more likely to change the world – and make their investors a lot more money – far more quickly than Cleantech investments will, at least for now. Let’s just say that the two companies I saw presentations for – Sandlinks, and especially Siverge – have amazing products that will really impact on society.
The lesson? DON’T follow the crowd – it’s usually as lost as you are! For Israel, “old,” tried and true hi-tech is where it’s still at!
Not to sound racist, but there’s no way a person raised in a Western country can’t feel some consternation when a person of clearly Arabic background gets on a plane. 9/11 was just too much of a shock to the system, and it’s impossible not to do some personal profiling, even if you try not to.
The same applies to Arabic text. If you’re from the United States or Israel (and probably lots of other countries) it’s impossible not to look at a page of Arabic writing and not get “nervous” – as in, “it must be some anti-Israel/anti-Jewish/pro-terrorist screed.” We’ve come to expect it, especially in Israel. And if you live in an area where there is lots of Arabic on the radio (such as Israel), you get the same suspicions listening to broadcasts of speakers who are dramatically intoning – something.
Other than learning to understand Arabic, there’s little you can do about the audio “threat” (one of my daughters more or less taught herself Arabic, so she can make out what goes on in these broadcasts). But for the rest of us who are too lazy/uninterested/incapable of learning a new language at this point in our lives, there’s Google Translations. There are lots of reasons not to like Google (like the people here say), but one amazing thing Google has done, imho, is Google Translate, where you can paste in text or URLs and get them automatically translated between dozens of languages – like English, Arabic, and Hebrew, as well as Swedish, Finnish, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, and of course the more “pedestrian” languages like Italian and French (no offense meant!).
Google Translate has helped me out numerous times – including just this afternoon, as I was writing a feature story on Israeli boxing. As part of the story, I wanted to mention the tragic death of a former Israeli Golden Gloves champ, Karim Nayif Bathish, who was killed a couple of weeks ago in an auto accident. I really wanted a picture of Bathish, but couldn’t find one anywhere – on the English and Hebrew sites, that is. Then I got the bright idea to Google Bathtish’s name in Arabic, seeking out articles about him on Israeli websites in Arabic. As a local hero in Nazareth and Haifa, you’d figure there would be a couple of articles. And indeed there were – complete with picture. The articles were quite factual, and the talkbacks were all what you would expect (mourning for the victim, etc.).
This isn’t the first time I’ve used Google Translate to research an article on Arabic language websites – I actually wrote an article in the JPost about it last year. And of course, I can’t help but check out other stories than the ones I was searching for on these sites. Let’s just say that while some fill the post-9/11 stereotype, most don’t. Believe it or not, “they” are not as obsessed with us as we think they are!
The thrust of my boxing article is how the organization tries to promote co-existence (most of the boxers are Arab or Russian kids). The director of the organization, Dr. Shahade, told me than in 20 years of running the Israel Boxing Association, there hasn’t been one ethnic/religious fight among the boxers! That’s great for kids who are in shape enough to box – but how can the rest of us avoid tension? Maybe Google Translate is the arena for us!
Before anyone gets too panicky about swine flu, make sure you check with the experts. Not the CDC or your doctor; as everyone knows, Google is the real expert on everything, including flu. And according to the Google Flu Trends site, the risk of flu is low – nearly minimal. “Current estimates of flu activity are still generally low across the United States, as is expected given the confirmed swine flu case count,” say Google.
And how did Google get to be such an expert on flu – and other – trends? By working with great developers right here in Israel! Google has two development centers in Israel – in Tel Aviv and Haifa – which shows how much Google values Israeli development (there are only a couple of countries around the world – MUCH bigger than Israel! – that have more than one development center).
Our team found that certain aggregated search queries tend to be very common during flu season each year. We compared these aggregated queries against data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and we found that there’s a very close relationship between the frequency of these search queries and the number of people who are experiencing flu-like symptoms each week. As a result, if we tally each day’s flu-related search queries, we can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness.
But it turns out that Google has been not only using made in Israel tech – its whole identity could be considered to have been created here, according to this article in Haaretz. Artist Ruth Kedar designed the famous Google logo ten years ago while she was at Stanford in California. According to Kedar, the logo’s simple look is deceptive, hiding its complex layers. Quoting her, the article says:
Someone who sees the logo for the first time doesn’t necessarily need to absorb all the layers and considerations behind every decision – it’s better for him to discover something new every time. It somewhat amuses me to turn on the computer and look at the logo I designed. But it also fills me with pride. When you say Google to people today, they immediately see the colorful logo.”
Israel is the world leader in hi-tech innovations. So many of the internet, cellphone, and gadget inventions that make our lives easier and more fun are born right here in Israel! Get the inside track on the newest ideas and innovations in our bi-weekly Digital Israel Newsletter. Sign up right here!
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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)
Well, if I was bored at Cleantech, I’d probably end up taking a nap at Semiconductors! I mean, could there be a drier, less “modern hi-tech” topic for discussion? Apparently, most of the people at the show felt the way I did, because there were barely two dozen people in the room, as opposed to the couple of hundred in the Cleantech room (as well as at the other presentations). As it turned out, though, there was plenty to hear in Semiconductors – plenty of great ideas that are much more likely to change the world – and make their investors a lot more money – far more quickly than Cleantech investments will, at least for now. Let’s just say that the two companies I saw presentations for – Sandlinks, and especially Siverge – have amazing products that will really impact on society.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3c4cfe0d-e684-4b41-b742-786b58750212)
Google Translate has helped me out numerous times – including just this afternoon, as I was writing a feature story on Israeli boxing. As part of the story, I wanted to mention the![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2d637cf1-d0c6-45d8-9e18-bc7ea78d41bb)
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