I’ve fallen behind on my blogging schedule of late. I was in the U.S. for most of August, and you know how that is – hanging out with the kids, running around to the stores, etc. Visiting the family is wonderful, but it’s no vacation!

I was all set to get back into the swing of things, when the almost unbelievable happened – my wife’s sister, Abigail Radoszkowicz, passed away, at the age of 53. Abigail was the editor of the Op-Ed page of the Jerusalem Post, which wrote a lengthy and emotional obituary for her. I’ve made a web page with the obit, plus letters and e-mail messages that the writers Abigail worked with sent to the Jpost in response to the tragedy. People who visited my wife as she sat shiva said they couldn’t recall ever reading an obit with such emotion and sadness. She was clearly loved by her colleagues – and yet, she was always sure she was going to be “the next one” to be fired!

She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer only in the middle of July – barely six weeks before she died. It was a very aggressive cancer, that spread to the liver and kidneys, until her body basically broke down on the Thursday (Sept. 3) that she passed away. She died very late Thursday night, and her husband, trying to arrange for a funeral for the next day, was told that there was no room in Jerusalem’s main cemetery, Har Hamenuchot – so she was sent to Har Hazeitim (Mt. of Olives), usually reserved for only the most righteous. While to look at her you wouldn’t think she was one of the “hidden tzaddikim,” apparently G-d knew better – and He arranged for her to be buried in a place worthy of her.

There’s lots I can say about Abigail – as a journalist, a sister in law, and a family member (the latter two are not necessarily the same, as most of us know). She was an intellectual who didn’t flaunt her knowledge, a cultured person who didn’t look down at the “masses,” and a religious (almost Chareidi) mother who encouraged her kids to explore the world. Abigail got me my start in the Jpost many years ago, where she got me an interview with the head of the ads department – from where I moved into systems administration, and finally writing. It’s only now, after the week of the shiva, that the loss is sinking in.

To read the obit (if you missed it in the Jpost), and the letters to the editor, please click on http://abigail.cyberjew.net/

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?!?

At first it sounded like another dream deal: An Israeli company sold a one third interest in a medical device it developed to a British-Taiwanese company for $370 million – making the total value of SafeSky’s LifeKeeper Patch over $1 billion. The deal, between SafeSky and Micro-Star International (MSI), is one of the biggest ever in relative terms for an Israeli hi-tech industry.

According to the company, the LifeKeeper patch can read information about the wearer’s medical state – recording data such as body temperature, heart rate and rhythms, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels. When you wear the patch, the information is transmitted via Bluetooth to a cell phone, where an application records the information. The phone program evaluates the data, and if the information being recorded indicates that that wearer is in danger of a heart attack or stroke, it can send an emergency message out to doctors or emergency services, who can then locate the wearer using the phone’s GPS capabilities. (I’m proud to say I had the first full English-language report on this, which you can read here)

Sounds like a medical miracle! And the fact that a company was willing to stake so much money for just a partial ownership seems like a miracle, too – in fact, it’s pretty miraculous that any company would have that kind of money around today!

Maybe it’s jealousy or politics (one of the co-inventors of the patch is said to be a good friend of Prime Minister Netanyahu), but a smattering of reports have appeared in the Israeli press over the past day or so questioning whether there was a deal, or whether the patch even exists! This, despite assurances by the owners that the deal was done and the check from MSI is already in the hands of SafeSky’s Tel Aviv lawyers. In an interview for a print publication (whose name I am not authorized to reveal online!) the interviewer asked co-inventor Amos Bouchnik about the reports, and he dismissed them:

“We’re not paying attention to them at all. We’ve kept the device under wraps at the request of the purchaser in order to ensure maximum industrial security. MSI will conduct a presentation in Tel Aviv in the near future and demonstrate it to doctors. The company has been examining this device for the past 18 months and it is indeed a device that will change the face of medicine.”

SafeSky is a private company, it made a deal for a product it owns, and it doesn’t have to reveal any details of its work – including to the media. But apparently the media doesn’t agree. Channel One ran a rather snide report questioning whether the device even exists! As if Bouchnik and his partner Arik Klein (Netanyahu’s friend) made the whole thing up! Note that both are very successful dentists, of all things – entrepreneurial dentists, who own chains of dental clinics and are involved in several other businesses. SafeSky, which they wholly own, has other products as well, such as “a better solar panel,” which can collect 100 times more energy than panels currently in use.

Not only do the two own the exclusive patents to the patch: They have never taken VC or other investment money, meaning they don’t owe anybody anything.

And therein probably lies the root of their spate of bad press, if I know my Israeli reporters. Probably some goon demanded to see the patch in action, and Bouchnik and Klein told them no way – to which the reporter got very offended and threatened to do a hatchet job on them. Unimpressed, the two sent the reporter his or her way, and s/he made good on the threat by running a nasty story questioning not only their ethics and reliability, but their sanity (as if they made the whole thing up!)

And if you think I’m being too hard on the reporter, I invite you to listen to the news magazines on Israel’s second radio channel (Reshet Bet), at 9 AM, 10 AM, Noon, and 5 PM. In the many live interviews with newsmakers they conduct, the speakers – ranging from politicians to plain old Joes – have to contend with constant interruptions, innuendo, and overall nastiness and rudeness. I mean it; speakers get interrupted by the hosts at nearly every sentence. It’s as if the hosts have to hear themselves speak every few seconds, in order to make sure everyone knows they’re in charge! That’s the caliber of reporter in Israel’s media – and making up a story just to get back at a company that doesn’t want to play ball with them is definitely not out of the realm of possibility. (Note: Picture is NOT of the LifeKeeper Patch, but for illustrative purposes only!)

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?