The word is out – Israel, despite all the talk of it being the target of Turkish and Arab hackers, is far safer online than most of the “first world” (and it’s pretty safe offline too, with crime stats per capita far lower than that of the U.S. and other countries). Israel, the most open country in the Middle East, is also the safest country in the region for internet users; Israelis have a one in 211 chance of experiencing an internet attack, far better than the world average, in which computer users were attacked online one in every 73 times they used the internet.
Israel also compared favorably to the rest of the Middle East, where there is a 1 in 119 chance of getting attacked. Jordanians had a 1 in 98 chance of getting attacked Syrians a 1 in 198 chance, and in Turkey – the world leader in internet riskiness – there was a 1 in 10 chance of getting hacked when you went online!
Not only that – Israel beats nearly all of Europe and the U.S.: In Australia, you have a 1 in 75 chance of getting attacked, while in the UK the chances were 1 in 63(!). In the rest of Europe, the chances of attack were 1 in 72, while in North America, the chances of getting hacked while online were a pathetic 1 in 51 – with the US a sad 1 in 48 (ahead of the US, counting up to the dubious number 1 spot occupied by Turkey, are: Portugal, Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia). Come on America – you can do better than Bangladesh and Russia!
The statistics were compiled by anti-virus specialists AVG, makers of AVG and AVG Free applications (FAR better, imho, than the “commercial” anti-virus apps like McAffee and Symantec). The information was compiled during July, so, the company says, the stats may change. Yeah, but not radically – which means that Israel will continue to be much safer online than any of its neighbors.
Considering that the internet is far more open in Israel (as is society in general), and considering that Israel is the prime target for the hackers who have made internet surfing hell in Turkey, it’s surprising that Israel is so safe. Chalk it up (again!) to Israel’s hi-tech prowess; as usual, Israel has to work twice as hard as everyone else to survive, and in the end manages to live better than any of its neighbors. It’s a phenomenon we see repeated over and over, in many different areas of society.
It’s too bad about Turkey; they burned their bridges with Israel, so we’re unlikely (hopefully) to be offering them any knowhow on building a safe internet. And without a safe internet, Turks are going to be locked out of the future hi-tech world. Well, they wanted to be part of (lead) the “great Muslim Ummah,” aping the lifestyles of hi-tech jewels like Syria and Egypt. And it certainly seems like their wish is coming true!
Israelis, as a whole, are very loyal to their country – but Ikea is by far now the most popular furniture store in Israel. Why have Israelis abandoned Herzl St. in Tel Aviv, the country’s furniture center, for Ikea? What does Ikea have that Israeli furniture stores don’t?
Variety – that’s what they have! Israelis want nice homes with knick-knacks and bric-a-bac, and they’re willing to pay. Until Ikea opened here a few years ago, Israelis would journey to the U.S. and Europe and bring back what they could – usually little items – to try and distinguish their homes from others. And when they were finally able to get the “big ticket” items that they couldn’t shlep on the plane, they descended on Ikea like hungry wolves.
You’d think other retailers would have realized by now that Israelis are ripe for the plucking, but so far no other major international chains have opened here – although Israeli furniture retailers have gotten the hint and have significantly updated their offerings.
Why am I going on about furniture? Because Ikea proves that choice and competition work; you get more for your money when companies have to compete for your business, and businesses that do not have to compete in this way feel they can inflate prices as much as they want. Take treadmills, for example; why are they triple and quadruple the price at Megasport than they are at Sears? Because. Whaddaya gonna do about it?
Well, Megasport’s day of reckoning – and the day of reckoning for many other retailers – may be coming soon, thanks to an Israeli-invented company called FiftyOne. FiftyOne runs a service that allows U.S. retailers to sell and ship goods around the world. I interviewed Mike DeSimone, the CEO of the company for Israel21C, and he told me all about it. They have several dozens stores – many of the ones you see in U.S. malls – as well as some big online retailers, like Overstock.com and Shoes.com. They will soon be adding retailers like the Gap, Macys, and Bloomingdales. And, they also have Sears.com, which by itself has tens of thousands of products!
You can connect to all of these retailers’ international sales services directly from FiftyOne’s merchant page. When you make a purchase, you’re essentially making it from FiftyOne, which keeps the books, determines the shipping (to Israel it’s usually five to fourteen business days) and the customs duties and VAT. It’s all determined before you place your order, so you know exactly how much you’re spending (not all stores ship to Israel, but enough do). Not all products are available at all sites; for example, we’ve been wanting a futon, which seem to be unavailable in Israel, but I couldn’t find one Sears was willing to ship here. On the other hand, I could have bought all the beanbag chairs I wanted.
The prices at Sears looked to be what they would in the U.S. (where most shipping is free) but the shipping pushes the price way up. Depending on the item, though, it might still be cheaper to order it online than to buy it here, even with the shipping and taxes. An exercise cycle, for example, came out to about $400 – NIS 1,500 or so – from Sears. I can’t imagine it costing less here.
Not all the prices were that great, however; Overstock.com seems to have more expensive prices for its Israeli customers, and a laptop I checked out there cost more than $200 higher than it did on Amazon. To order from Amazon, you can use the Mustop service – and when their shipping was added to the price of the laptop, the two figures weren’t that far apart.
But I’m willing to give FiftyOne some time – to get more stores and better (ie cheaper) shipping options, especially for bigger (and bigger ticker) items. Sooner or later, we’ll be able to import Kenmore washing machines and dryers directly into Israel!
“Peace in our time,” or an underhanded Arab attempt to embarrass Israel? A spokesperson for Microsoft’s offices in Saudi Arabia announced Tuesday that the company would be releasing its Project Natal 3D controller in October – in time for the winter gifting season. According to this,
Speaking in an interview, Microsoft Saudi’s Marketing Manager, Syed Bilal Tariq, has confirmed that Project Natal will be releasing worldwide sometime in October… Tariq goes on to say that more information will be coming at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo, June 15-17).
Note, btw, that the interview is being broadcast on KSA2, Saudi Arabia’s English languageTV service, which I actually receive here in Israel, thanks to my non-YES satellite dish. Unfortunately, I missed the Saudi morning news today, so I’m glad someone recorded it
So what’s so weird? Just this: The Natal 3D controller, which is the key of the system, is 100% made in Israel, by a company called PrimeSense (look for my upcoming great interview with PrimeSense boss Inon Beracha, coming to an internet near you this week!).
PrimeSense has developed a wandless 3D technology that tracks tens of thousands of points in space at one time (as compared to the two points Nintendo Wii trackers can follow), and extrapolates the information to capture every move of anyone or anything that ventures into the sensor’s field of vision. “It’s like wearing a suit with tens of thousands of Wii points,” Beracha told me. Besides being far more effective, the PrimeSense box is extremely inexpensive to produce, meaning that prices on xBoxes could actually come down (or at least not go up!). Note that the video below is from an MS press conference in Tel Aviv last month demonstrating the PrimeSense technology.
One thought that occurred to me was that Tariq was hoping to embarrass PrimeSense by giving an unrealistic date for the system to be on the market, one that would be too early – thus making the Israeli company look bad, either by failing to supply the sensors on time, or by rushing them out to market and mucking up Natal. Fortunately, PrimeSense completed development on the sensor awhile ago, and they are all ready for market, Beracha told me.
So what’s the head of MS Saudi Arabia doing touting a great piece of Israeli technology? Does he have more loyalty to the corporation than to the “ummah?” And considering what an “Israeli outfit” Microsoft is (it’s home to the third largest MS dev team in the world), should a good Israel-hating Saudi even be working for the company?? And how is it that MS isn’t on the Arab boycott list??? Mr. Tariq, if you’re out there – the (Israeli) people want to know!
It’s amazing how even the most innocent tech story turns political in the Middle East. Take Gmail SMS chat – brand new in Israel.
In Israel, Gmail users can send free SMS messages to any Orange or Pelephone number for free (the recipient gets “charged” an SMS unit. There is now a “Send SMS” box at the left side of the Gmail page. You type in a phone number and a pop-up box where you can type your message, and choose the destination (Gmail SMS is currently available in four locations – the U.S., “Palestinian Territories” (see below), Israel or Ghana (!). The message gets sent (it went through pretty quick when I tried it with my phone) and when the receiver responds, you get a pop-up in Gmail, enabling you to chat with them. It’s great if you have a plan with lots of SMS messages – otherwise you might want to switch to Gmail if you’re going to be having a long chat (there are mobile versions of Gmail at http://www.google.com/mobile/).
You start out with 50 free messages, and every time someone sends you one back, you get five more free messages for a maximum of 50 (messages to/from North America don’t have a quota). And, according to the help page, “if your quota goes down to zero at any point, it will increase back up to one 24 hours later. So, you won’t ever be locked out of the system.”
So, everything’s cool, and make get even cooler: According to some entries I’ve seen in official Google blogs, the introduction of messaging services by Google in a market heralds a communication expansion – so we could (hopefully) get Google Voice here in Israel in the near future.
Attempting to figure out what the criteria were for Google’s choosing of these four locations for the introduction of this service, I came up with this: The U.S. because it’s the U.S.; Israel, because it was probably developed here; PA areas, because they’re more or less on the same network as Israeli cellphone companies.
And Ghana? That’s part of a Google commitment to spread technology in the third world. Ghana is about as third world as you can get: it’s got a 65% literacy rate, and a GDP of $1500 per capita. According to this article about a Google SMS service in Uganda, Google is promoting cellphone services in third world countries because many more people in such countries use cellphones than computers. Ghana would certainly seem to fit that model as well: According to this site, Ghana is 93rd of 117 countries in the world in broadband usage.
“In Africa, we’ve learned that mobile phones are easier to get to than internet connections and PCs, and that working towards our mission means working through mobile phones. At the beginning of 2008, there were over a quarter of a billion mobile subscribers on the continent. Mobile penetration has risen from just one in 50 people at the beginning of this century to almost one third of the population today.”
When it comes to Israel, though, someone always has to throw politics into the works. One of the few blog posts I found was here, where the author referred to “Israel” as being one of the places where Gmail SMS is being implemented. Explaining why, the “author” (whoops!) writes that
“I just would like to say ArabCrunch has no political views and we do our best to stay away from politics. As for me I only put “Israel” between ” ” to note that this is a area of conflict nothing more, i am not against anyone.”
I, too, will keep my opinions to myself, and will just cite facts: Israel was created in 1947 as a result of a United Nations vote that authorized the creation of a Jewish and Arab state in the former British mandate of Palestine. The Jews accepted that deal, the Arabs didn’t, and seven Arab armies attacked the newly formed state of Israel. The Arabs lost, and Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria (“the West Bank”). Only two countries recognized Jordanian sovereignty over those areas – Britain and Pakistan. In 1967, the Arabs again began a war against Israel (the blockade of the Straits of Tiran was a classic casus belli), again losing.
Unlike Jordan, Israel is administering Judea and Samaria, and has been for the past 43 years, because there is no entity currently legally responsible for those areas. As such, the term “occupied territories” is improperly used in this context, since there was no legally recognized sovereign in those areas after 1947. In 1994, the United Nations voted to recognize the Palestinian Authority (the inception of which was an Israeli idea) and that entity has observer status in the UN. The PA is considered a candidate as a possible sovereign in Judea and Samaria. These are all objectively verifiable facts, and use of the term “Palestine” as a national entity is inaccurate from an international legal point of view – as is the use of quotation marks around “Israel.”
A study by Israel’s Oketz Systems released Thursday said that workers in hi-tech companies have a better chance of finding a “life partner” than workers in other professions. According to the study, one out of every nineteen workers on average finds a mate among their co-workers – but for hi-tech workers, that figure is one out of fourteen. In addition, the study showed that significantly more hi-tech co-worker romances ended up in marriage, than did hookups for workers in other areas. And of course, since hi-tech workers get paid better, it’s a good deal all around!
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!
You know those TV shows (I’m thinking Oprah) where they tell you how much money you can save if you stop smoking? Well, I’m saving money now too – not by giving up smoking, but by giving up Big Corporate Commercial TV!
Actually, I’m not giving up TV – not by a long shot. What I am giving up is subscription digital satellite TV, better known in Israel as “YES.”
Yes, this post is about saying no to YES (the truth is I thought of that line a long time ago, but I promised to give Jameel credit. We like Jameel). YES was costing me NIS 290 a month ($77 a month in current shekels!), an astronomical price for much of what turns out to be content (upwards of 80%, I would say) I can get for FREE, using an alternative satellite decoder that subscribes to the hundreds of free to airTV stations broadcasting in the Middle East.
I’ve been investigating the idea of dumping YES for awhile, so I did quite a bit of research on alternatives – and I knew exactly what to expect with the one meter dish I had installed, aimed at two satellites, Israel’s Amos, which has the six Israeli stations and Middle East TV, and Nilesat, which carries about 600 channels. Yes, most of them are Arabic, but there are enough English language one to make getting rid of YES worth it.
Until very recently, YES and HOT (the cable provider) had you over a barrel, because it was the only way even to get Israel Channel 10 (Recently Channels 1 and 2 went digital, and now you need a terrestrial decoder even to watch those). Now, if you want to watch any TV at all, you need a terrestrial digital box, which costs a couple of hundred shekels (I think) But for not much more, you can get a satellite decoder which you can attach to your YES satellite dish connection, if you’re already a customer (when you cancel your service, YES leaves the dish in place). The YES dishes are 80 centimeters, and most people I know who do this are able to use them to get the Nilesat broadcasts. If you want to be “sure” you’ll have access to the wide range of stations on Nilesat or don’t have a YES dish, you can get a one meter dish (like I did) for a few hundred more shekels.
I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say that on Nilesat, there are about 25 English language channels – news, sports and entertainment – all broadcasting free to air. From what I’ve seen so far, the programs on the free channels are equal (if not superior) to the YES content; the Dubai MBC English language movie stations (there are three of them), for example, all have the same movies that YES was charging 40 shekels a month for customers to watch as part of the “movie package.” There hasn’t been a decent program on the YES entertainment stations (channels 12, 13, 14) for a long time, imho, but the programs on the two MBC entertainment channels, as well as Fox Series (where you can watch The Simpsons 10 times a day!), along with a couple of other light entertainment channels, more than make up for YES’s offerings.
In fact, YES can thank MBC for making me a non-customer – it just highlighted the greed of the company. As I mentioned, the MBC channels are all free to air – meaning that YES could rebroadcast them without it costing them a nickel. But even worse; the one Arabic language MBC station is part of their “premium” Arabic package! Not that I watch Arabic TV (although I have plenty of opportunity to do so now!), but if you’re going to rebroadcast one of the MBCs, why not all of them!? But of course they wouldn’t – because then you might not order their “premium” entertainment package! Why pay for what you can see for free?
The truth is, it wasn’t even the money that got us to cancel. What we really hated about YES were, believe it or not, the “promos.” At all hours of the day and night, YES would broadcast promos for the most depraved programs – running the most depraved clips from the programs! And while I wouldn’t care if they did it at night, during “adult time,” I couldn’t take how they insisted on doing it during the afternoon, between shows the kids watch! I know quite a few people who felt the same way, but I’m sure they got the same reaction I did when I called YES to complain – double-talk, accusations that I was hallucinating (true story!), and being ignored.
They just don’t care – until you call to cancel. Now, I’ve got service reps left and right begging me to stay. By the way – don’t try to quit if you have a contract (ie wait till it runs out, because it will cost you at least NIS 400 to break it!). I haven’t had a contract for awhile, so theoretically I should be able to call up and cancel immediately. No way, though; I have to wait for a “senior service person” to call me up and “confirm” that I want to cancel (no doubt I will have to endure some sales pitch). But that’s to be expected, too – they learned it at the “nickel and dime” school of making money, quite common among many Israeli companies. This way, they can keep me on the line for another week or so.
Meanwhile, I’m quite happy with my 35 or so watchable stations (supplemented, of course, by iTunes podcasts and downloaded shows – but that’s another post). I’m thinking I should get someone to back a show I might produce about How to Save Money By Cutting the Cable (or the DBS dish). I bet they won’t show it on YES, though!
If you thought you weren’t getting the internet connection speed you’re paying for, you may be right. According to Knesset member Meir Sheetrit, the two companies in Israel that provide infrastructure and backbone services for internet connection – Bezeq (the phone company) and Hot (the cable company) – are not going to be able to provide the super-fast speeds they are promising to customers, except in maybe a few places.
Sheetrit suggests that the companies be required by law to tell customers the maximum speed they can expect in their areas, considering the potential for misleading customers. “Often, because of their naiveté, customers sign up for service at high speed and prices, only to find out that the company is unable to provide the service,” he wrote in a letter to the Knesset Technology Committee.
Sheetrit forgot to add what comes next – the near-impossibility of getting your money back after you’ve been ripped off by these vultures. It’s bad enough that they (by “they” I mean almost every large service company, not just ISPs) will try to sell you stuff you don’t need at almost every turn, but when the service or product they dump off on you doesn’t even work, trying to get your money back is out of the question – the best you can hope for, usually, is a credit towards a future purchase. In other words, once they’ve got your money, you’re not getting it back!
As I wrote in the Jerusalem Post, it’s a worldwide trend – service and quality you once expected as a matter of course is now “premium,” as companies, strapped for cash, nickel and dime us for everything they can squeeze out of us.
Why am I not surprised? This is just another manifestation of an attitude that you find in so many places, from the corner store to the bank to, of course, the government. They sweet talk you and act like you’re their best friend when they try to get you to sign up – but once they have your money, try getting the time of day out of them!
Here are a few good tests I’ve found which indicates how badly you are going to get ripped off:
Before ordering a service, call the company’s service line, and see how long they keep you waiting. While all companies are guilty of giving lousy service, some are less bad than others. As I do lots of research for my writing, I call companies like Orange, Bezeq, etc. to ask questions, even if I’m not a subscriber to the service. A good indication of what to expect is the “sales to service call” ratio – ie, the time difference between how fast the sales people answer the phone, and how slowly the service people talk to you. The bigger the gap, the worse the service, I’ve found.
Ditto for the sales pitches they give you, both recorded and live. Some companies will respond to nearly every question with a sales pitch, basically ignoring what you asked (but implying that your problem can be solved if you just ‘upgrade’). Often long times on hold are coordinated with repeated recorded sales pitches – it’s as if they keep you waiting just so they can get you to listen to their stupid ads! Avoid companies that do this, if possible.
Any service or sales person that does not implicitly understand that they work for you – and not the opposite – is a bad reflection on the company they work for. When I speak to sales or service reps, I’m very attuned to signs of cynicism or superciliousness. If the person on the other end of the phone sounds like s/he has his/her nose up in the air when they talk to you – like they’re somehow better than you (even though you’re paying their salary!) – it’s time to move on.
How do you resolve these issues? In Israel, a loud voice always helps. You have to be prepared “lahafoch shulchanot” (go crazy),as they say. Threaten to switch, cancel the service, or threatening to tell all your friends how bad the service/product is can help too, sometimes; most of the people you speak to on the phone don’t care one way or the other, but if you really do cancel or switch, you can be sure their manager will be listening to the recording of the conversation and probably call them on it, so if you can make them understand that it is they who are causing you to want to leave the company, they may think twice before acting nasty. Unfortunately, there’s no sure-fire single method that works every time; it’s a matter of experimentation, seeing which company reacts to what tactic.
But it’s worth the effort; when you confront the service providers and make them understand what they are doing wrong, you are contributing to an improvement of the consumer culture in this country – and maybe even helping the next person not to get ripped off!
Israel is a technology powerhouse – but how powerful a powerhouse? Very powerful, it turns out – and now we have the statistics to back up the claim. A study by the Taub Center for Social Policy Research shows that Israel runs circles around even the most advanced countries when it comes to patents, research, and even Nobel prizes!
For example, the study says, Israelis get more patents in the United States per capita (relative to population size) than any of the G7 countries, including the U.S. itself. By 2003, in fact, Israelis had 69% more patents per capita than any of the G7’s. In 1990, by contrast, Israelis got 6% fewer patents than inventors in G7 countries (which in itself is not too shabby, imho).
Nobel prizes? Israel is in sixth place overall in absolute numbers of Nobel Prize winners. Since 2000, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to at least one winner in 20 of 200 countries around the world – while Israelis during that period won 5 Nobels!
Research? Check this out: Israeli economists were cited in more publications (per capita, ie relative to the number of economists in each country) between 1970 and 2000 than economists in any other country in the world. The runner-up is Britain – but Israeli economists were cited seven times more than British economists in magazines, books, periodicals, journals, etc.!
The study has more to say – not so good -about standards of living, poverty, etc. I’ll get to that in the next an upcoming post, but let’s first enjoy this good news, at least for now!
Chalk up another successful export industry Israel is a player in: Satellites. Earlier this year, Israel’s first communication satellite, Amos-1, was sold to Intelsat, one of the largest operators of communication satellites in the world. Amos 1 will now be known as Intelsat 24, and will be used for communications in East Asia – meaning that Iranians watching channels like India’s Star TV may be getting their shows from an Israeli-made satellite!
According Amitzur Rosenfeld, director of MicroSat Israel (a joint venture between IAI and Rafael to build micro-satellites), Intelsat is directing eastward Amos-1, which is still in orbit. Speaking recently at a scientific conference in Tel Aviv, Rosenfeld said the original plan had been to use whatever fuel was left on the old Amos-1 (launched in 1996) and fire it out of the earth’s orbit, to make room for new satellites. By doing so, Israel was being a good world citizen; according to NASA, there are over 9,000 (!) satellites and/or other “artificial objects” orbiting the earth, so things can get crowded up there!
Israel, it turns out, is one of the most advanced countries in satellite technology anywhere, because of the launching technology it has developed, along with breakthroughs in imaging. Most of the country’s communication satellites (like the Amoses) have been launched from outside the country (France, India, Russia, etc.), because of the need to fire satellites in an eastward direction, the direction of the earth’s rotation. That works fine in Florida or Texas, but in this part of the world, an eastbound launch might be construed as an attack by Jordan or further neighbors.
And, in addition, Israel’s new TecSAR satellite provides superior imaging capabilities, enabling sensors to pick up what is going on down below even during cloudy weather. Israel and France are developing a satellite that will enable farmers, fishermen and governments to better keep track of the land and sea environment, and according to “informed sources,” NASA is set to build a satellite in Israel using TecSAR technology to be used to map the usually very cloudy planet Venus. Nowadays, here in Israel, “space cadet” is a compliment, not an insult!
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