Remember that old commercial, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” That’s a question we will soon be asking about what we see, not just what we hear, thanks to the development of a technology called Augmented Reality. Using a device’s camera, GPS, Bluetooth, digital compass, wifi, and other networking and input capabilities, you can turn reality into a video game, run through “what if” scenarios, or get a text or video overlay on something that they are looking at.

Example: You’re checking out what movie to see at the multiplex, and you forgot to check out the reviews. With an AR app on your phone, you could point your phone at a movie poster, and then get reviews displayed on the screen, without having to press any buttons! More sophisticated versions would let you see a trailer, or even buy tickets. It’s not at all science fiction – actually, an application like this exists for some Nokia smartphones, and there are already a slew of AR apps for Androids and cellphones (I could have used this one when I installed my non-YES satellite dish a couple of months ago!)

As it turns out, an Israeli company called Ogmento, is deeply involved in developing AR applications, especially for the iPhone. If you want to try it on the web, check out the application they developed for Vampire Academy. Scary!

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Tags: Augmented reality, Bluetooth, Global Positioning System, iPhone, Mobile phone, Nokia, Smartphone, Video game

We hear a lot about business “giving back to the community,” but everyone knows it’s BS. There are no free lunches, and everything has strings attached. It’s always all about the money. Everyone knows it.

But maybe what everyone knows isn’t always right. It certainly wasn’t at the “startup roundtable” meeting I went to, hosted by Israeli investment adviser and social media expert Sharon Weshler. Sharon and his buddy Aviad of the Termiks startup investment center ran a “roundtable” for fledgling Israeli startups, where entrepreneurs with great ideas could get some help in getting their idea ready for presentation to investors.

The ideas were really creative, ranging from a system to improve management of nursing homes to a home entertainment gadget, and a better way to grow food! Presenters gave the group their core idea and “elevator pitch,” and attendees could comment, question, or give constructive criticism on ideas and presentations.

The startup roundtable idea isn’t a new one, and I’ve been to a number myself. But most of them are sponsored by advisors for their clients, prepping them for presentations to investors. In other words, the sponsors of the roundtable have a financial interest in ensuring that their candidates present well, so they can bring in the bucks

Not so at Sharon and Aviad’s roundtable – from what I could tell, there was no financial or contractual relationship between the presenters and the sponsors. That said, I’m sure Sharon and Aviad would be happy to find a company to work with, but you have to figure there are better ways to track down companies interesting enough to invest in without spending upwards of four hours listening to ideas that they had no idea in advance would be worth listening to! That is what I call really giving back to the community!

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Tags: Business, Company, Elevator pitch, Financial services, Investing, Investment, Small business, social media

Image via CrunchBase

Could the recession really be over? According to Israeli placement company Etosia, 75% of managers in the hi-tech sector see hiring during 2010 set to grow by at least 20% – with half seeing hiring grow by as much as 30%, or even more. In addition, 46% see salaries in the hi-tech sector growing next year. The poll of 80 directors and top managers in Israeli hi-tech companies was conducted over the past several weeks, with companies of all sizes polled – from those with fewer than 10 employees, to companies with over 500.

Quoting Eyal Solomons, director of Etosia, Globes (in this Hebrew article) said that according to the poll, the hot areas in hi-tech next year – in order of “hotness” – will be software development, sales and marketing, hardware development, and product engineering and development. “Already now we can see a sharp rise in the number of open positions. Since the beginning of the year, demand for workers has gone up 40%.” Salaries, he said, are now more stable as well, since there is more demand.

Perhaps the best result coming out of the poll is that 81% of the bosses believe that the world economy will improve next year. Why is that “the best?” Because Israel’s hi-tech markets are overseas – in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the Far East. Companies wouldn’t be looking to hire if they didn’t think sales were going to rise as well – in the U.S. and Europe. While sales to China are already up, China is still far smaller a customer of Israel’s than the U.S. (first place) and Europe (second).

After being battered for the past couple of years, hi-tech companies have been very conservative in hiring – so the fact that they’re going out on a limb and proclaiming their desire to hire means that change really is in the air. Let’s hope that these guys are right!

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Tags: China, Far East, Hebrew language, High tech, israel, Marketing, Middle East, Software development

With the weather turning wintery in Israel over the last few days – and more promised for this week – I wanted to tell you about a great service you may not know about. Dr. Barry Lynn’s Weather It Is is a weather forecasting service that gives a specific forecast for dozens of cities in Israel, usually much more accurate than the forecast you get on radio or TV.

I interviewed Dr. Lynn for the Jpost a few years ago, and he told me that the standard “one size fits all” weather forecast issued by the Israel Weather Service is the result of bad equipment, small budgets, and poor motivation (as in small salaries). The one perk the forecasters doget, it appears, is fame – the one on duty during prime radio hours gets to jabber with the hosts a little bit, but beyond that there’s little to attract talented meteorologists to a government job, he said.

By the way – weather forecasters do a lot more than just tell you whether you should take an umbrella when you leave the house. As I wrote then:

…improved and more accurate weather prediction could be a boon for many industries that need to wrestle the environmental elements in order to get work done. Take an electric company crew that needs to do major line work, for example. These guys get paid a huge hunk of change for field work, and if the company sends them out on a job, while they sit in the truck instead of working because a surprise electrical storm has made it too dangerous to work, the company – and, of course, its customers – end up footing that bill. An accurate weather prediction for the specific area in question is valuable information for the utility, says Dr. Lynn, and they’ll pay – as will oil and gas drillers, farmers, airports and a host of other industries and services.

When I spoke to Dr. Lynn, he mentioned that he was involved in forming some deals, and indeed he now has a general website where he advertises his services, and it appears he’s “weathering” the recssion. Meanwhile, he updates his Israel site on a regular basis. It’s interesting to see what the differences in weather are in various places in Israel during stormy times like these!

Tags: israel, Jerusalem Post, Meteorology, Middle East, Television, Thunderstorm, Weather, Weather forecasting

Remember the startup contest, Exit’09? The one where the winner gets – would you believe it – a package worth $250,000? Well, we have a winner!

If you will recall (and if you don’t, the original article is here), Exit’09 was a contest to decide what Israel’s most promising startup was. Applicants submitted ideas, videos, and details to the judges, who decided whether or not they qualified for the contest; those that did survived by getting people to vote for them, with the top winners each week advancing to the finals. Eventually, there were only two companies left, and they participated in a “Big Brother” style internet broadcast, with web viewers able to watch them put together their final presentations, which the judges would then decide between, declaring one a winner.

And the winner? While you’d expect the people (and the judges’) choice to be a really sophisticated new web service, or groundbreaking piece of software, the idea that got the prize belongs to Penina First, a young lady from the town of Givat Ze’ev, who wants to organize an SMS alert system for odd job seekers and the people who need them to run errands.

Penina foresees a site called Day-Job (doesn’t seem to be in existence yet), where people looking for someone to do a short task – say, babysitting, filling in for an absent waiter or secretary, someone to do some housework, etc. – can search out a worker and hire them. Candidates who are members of the service get an SMS, and the first one to respond gets the job.

First says that the system is perfect for students, soldiers, etc., who can’t commit to a regular work schedule, but want to earn some extra money. Her sympathies are with the workers (she’s clearly “been there”), so all fees are collected from the employers – who are asked to pay a modest sum of seven shekels, collected by reverse SMS when they close the deal to hire someone.

It’s really an ingeniously simple idea – so much so you would have thought it already existed. But it doesn’t! Even more – the idea is genuinely Israeli. I read somewhere that Tel Aviv is one of the best cities for temping and odd jobs. Meaning that First’s idea is bound to be a winner. Good choice, Exit’09 judges!

Tags: Embassies and Consulates, Employment, Foreign, Government, israel, Middle East, Shekel, Tel Aviv

If you ever wondered where new internet ideas come from – they come from places like the minds of the people who entered the Exit ‘09 contest. The contest, sponsored by a slew of Israeli companies (chief among them Israeli development house Sergata) is open to anyone with a good idea – and if the idea is good enough to get into the contest, they could win a “startup package” worth $250,000 (including $100,000 in cash)! Even better – the format of the contest is a sort of “reality TV” show, where fans of startup ideas can vote for their favorites, with a panel of judges (top people from Google Israel, IBM, The Marker, and others) picking the winner.

Most of the 26 contestants put up a video on the Exit ‘09 site describing their idea or technology. I wrote about the contest in a Jerusalem Post article (which you can see here), but here I wanted to say something about the videos (ie, the ideas) – which got me thinking about the whole business of “innovation.”

There were a couple of really original ideas – one entrepreneur wants to put up a site where people who wear hearing aids can adjust them using a website, another plans a “pet interface” site for dogs and cats who are at home all day alone (they can communicate with their masters, or even with other pets!). Another site would provide a “virtual shrink” for counseling and coaching.

But many of the other ideas seemed to be very similar to already existing web sites and services. So, if the contest was based on “innovation” – having a really good, different idea – many of the contenders wouldn’t have qualified to be in the contest, based on what I could see.

But modern “innovation” – the kind that makes you hundreds of millions on the internet – isn’t necessarily just about having a unique idea. It can be about having a unique twist on an existing idea. It’s about the packaging, the marketing, the way you convince people to use it – the way YOU see it being used. You can take an existing idea and tweak it, turning it into something big – much bigger than the original idea you were tweaking. That’s really all you need!

Believe it or not, one of the biggest “breakthrough ideas” of the internet era – distributing music over a network – is actually a century old! The Tel-Musici Company of Wilmington, Delaware, was, according to this article, streaming music directly to users’ homes in 1909 – via the telephone! Customers would call Tel-Musici and order a selection, and for three cents (seven cents for lengthy operas), the company would stream music to the customer’s phonograph, via a special transmitter connecting the phone and the phonograph that “intensifies and enlarges the volume of sound of all phonographic records but eliminates the metallic, rasping and grating features which have heretofore constituted an objectionable feature of phonographic concerts.”

I couldn’t find any references on whether Napster inventor Shawn Fanning was aware of Tel-Musici, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was. And there are lots of other examples of successful programs that conquered the market from less well-marketed previous offerings.

In other words, to succeed in the internet business, you don’t necessarily even need an original idea! And one thing I get from watching the videos on the Exit ‘09 site is that you don’t necessarily need much technical knowledge either (many of the presenters say straight out that they don’t have a technical background). And in fact, the premise of Exit ‘09 is that the winning idea gets lots of help from the dozen or so companies offering programming, marketing, and branding help. All that gets outsourced to the service providers. In other words, the only thing you have to bring to the table is the “tweak” – the little twist that will put even an already existing idea into a new light. Exit ‘09 proves it (and a number of friends of mine who began successful startups prove it too).

Wow! It that’s all it takes, what’s stopping us from raking in the bucks?!?

Tags: Barack Obama, Business and Economy, israel, Jerusalem, Jerusalem Post, Middle East, Napster, Shawn Fanning

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.”

Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu, Middle East, Tony Blair

So was it a fraud – a scam – as so many now seem to believe? Was the story earlier this week about the miracle LifeKeeper patch – the patch that could predict heart attacks in advance, and give blood sugar readings without injections – cooked up for some nefarious reason?

If you haven’t been following this story, you’ve been missing some high drama. After the initial news reports on the patch developed by the SafeSky company (I have to admit, I thought from the start that it was a strange name for a medical device company!) that was now valued at over a billion dollars, after the company made a deal with MicroStar International to sell a one third interest in it for over $300 million, an avalanche of reports appeared questioning whether there really was such a deal, or if the patch even existed. The patch has never been seen by an independent third party, apparently; MSI denied that there was any deal with SafeSky, and has even threatened to sue for defamation if their name was not kept out of the story.

CEO Gabi Picker quit, saying that he, too, had never seen the device, or any of the paperwork revolving around it (like FDA certification). One of the principals of the company, Arik Klein, served time for crimes some years ago after he was convicted of fraud. The deal was mostly worked out by fax and e-mail (some reports said), with the e-mail address not really that of MSI, but of an e-mail address that looked legitimate but was really owned by Klein himself. Etc. etc. etc.

So how could so many intelligent people (I’d include myself in that number, but I’m not that intelligent!) fall for this alleged scam (we’ll get back to that word “alleged” in a minute). Only because so many other medical and tech miracles have come out of Israel in recent years.

I spoke with my buddy Jameel at length about this story – he didn’t believe a word of this from the beginning. He is also a certified EMT who has had (unfortunately) much experience with heart attacks and the like, and according to him, the signs of an imminent heart attack (high blood pressure, an adrenaline rush) could be attributed to many factors other than heart problems, such as exercise (but for people with weak hearts, wouldn’t those signs indicate increased danger anyway?). Plus, he says, the idea of a non-invasive method for checking blood sugar doesn’t exist either.

Well, I’m not a doctor (I don’t even play one on TV!), so I can’t comment on the medical aspect of what Jameel says. But I do know something about medical devices and software technology – and the idea of using sensors to determine a threshold (such as heart rate) that sets off an alarm is nothing new. The patch is supposed to relay the information it collects by bluetooth (certainly not unfeasible). Similar technology – sensors, alarms, communication – can be found in any number of products. The issues being disputed are getting the data (using sensors in a patch) and communicating it (the patch is thought to be too small to hold a communications chip).

But I still say that the scam is “alleged” – meaning that there really could be a LifeKeeper patch.  According to this story, the folks behind the patch are to appear on Israel Channel Two Friday night in an exclusive interview, and will continue to claim that the patch exists, and that it will be sold. Dr. Amos Bouchnik, a respected businessman who is half owner of the company, says that there will be a big deal for this patch, which does exist. “I believe that there will be many deals. The company called SafeSky will be worth $20 or $30 billion in the future.”

Is he crazy? If you believe the whole thing is a scam, and considering the week Bouchnik had, you would have to think so. And yet the man is a millionaire several times over. You would think that he would drop the pretense at this point. Any value that could have been attributed to this scam has now been compromised. Some said it was designed to pull in investment money, others said it was a money laundering scam (lots of money going into the SkySafe account that could be sourced as part of the deal by tax authorities). But the story has been reported around the world by now; who would sink their money into this?

In other words, what does Bouchnik get out of going on TV and continuing to make claims?

Until I get a satisfactory answer, I’m sticking with “alleged” scam – and hoping that this is the real thing!

Tags: Crime, Fraud, Heart disease, israel, Money laundering, Television, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Warfare and Conflict

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.

Tags: Add new tag, computers, DonkeyKong, hi-tech, israel, Microsoft, Nintendo, technology, Video game, Wii, Xbox, Zcam