It’s a great feeling when one of your kids grows up and becomes a “man” (or “woman”). They’re out on their own in the big bad world. You hope and pray they’ll be able to meet the challenges that come their way. And you watch with pride as they take their place in society, building their own homes, and raising their families.
So on this day, when the technology developed by Israel’s Primesense officially leaves its nest and begins to make its way in the world, we send our blessings and good wishes to the final version of the company’s 3D sensing device, now officially called Microsoft Kinect (formerly called Project Natal). Will it be a Wii-killer? Microsoft certainly believes it will, and we can only hope gamers (and Christmas shoppers!) agree.
Come November, gamers all over the world will be using the most sophisticated 3D tracking interface ever invented (so far), thanks to the depth analysis hardware/software developed by Primesense for Microsoft (although, according to this story, which does a good job of explaining the Kinect’s technology, Microsoft’s lead may not last forever). You cant’ get much bigger than MS, and it’s great to see one of “our own” making the big time!
If a criteria of Apple fanboydom is how much money one has given to Apple, I definitely have done my share to support the company. Here are my Apple credentials: I own an iMac, two Mac Minis, two Macbooks, two iPod Touches, and varied and sundry iPods.
With that said, here are my first impressions of the iPad.
1. It’s too big. Yes, I know it’s not a Kindle, but still.
2. The screen looks like it would be easy to scratch.
3 .64 GB memory is nice, but it would need an expansion slot to really be useful. Yes, I know it’s not supposed to be a laptop, but still. Steve says it’s “way better than a laptop,” but still – what would really be nice is if they would put that touch-screentechnology into a Macbook-type device.
4. It appears that Apple is positioning the iPad for use as a video entertainment device. When would you use it? Not at home, where you would probably want a big screen. On the road? But wouldn’t it be better to take a laptop or netbook, so you could get other stuff done besides watching video?
5. That said, it will probably be a big seller. Nothing Apple has ever made has been a bomb (except maybe the Newton, depending on whom you ask.)
The above is not to exclude the possibility that I will buy one myself.
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?
Yes, the iPhone is coming to Israel, but I wouldn’t get too excited – unless you like overpaying and getting stuck with what’s probably going to be a whopper of a voice/data plan. If I know the Israeli phone companies, customers who buy the iPhone from the carriers – Orange Israel (Partner Communications) and Pelephone – are going to be paying… and paying… and paying some more!
How do I know? Because that’s just the way things work here. Israeli cell phone companies don’t give out any free lunches – or free phones. Unlike in America, where they give you a phone for nothing (or for a very nominal cost) when you sign up for a plan. Here, you have to buy the phone, for full price – and then some!
Yes, you can pay it off in 36 payments, at NIS 29 a month. So what. Even over three years at 21% interest, with minimum monthly payments, it comes out a little cheaper buying it from Amazon!
But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that this phone is an OLD phone (old in “cellphone age,” that is). It was announced almost a year ago and went on sale last fall (2008). That’s why it’s marked down at Amazon from its $319.99 original price (the original Orange price was correspondingly higher, too). Here, Orange isn’t selling this phone unlocked; it expects you to use it for the next three years, and is treating it like a premium/top of the technology product! Not that there’s anything wrong with this Sony model (we have several Sony phones and they’ve all been great). But why do we have to pay top shekel for older phones that they’re giving away for nothing in the U.S.? Correction – they’re not even giving away that phone anymore; it’s too old! The phones they’re giving away are phones like the Blackberry Curve 8900, the LG CU920, and the Samsung i637. Just for signing up for a plan!
So how much do you think they’re going to want for the latest top of the line iPhone? Answer: It doesn’t matter. Given the history of phone costs in Israel, I predict that regardless of what they decide to charge (note that iDigital, the Israel Apple reseller – which is NOT an Apple Store – is buying the phones from Apple and reselling them), it will be cheaper to spend the $100 on the iPhone in the States, sign up for a month of AT&T service and then pay the cancellation fee ($175) plus other various and sundry costs!
P.S.: There’s much more to say about taking the cell phone service providers taking top shekel for outmoded cellphones; the biggest scam has to be how the companies bought up old analog cellphones for pennies, rebranded them, and sold them for ridiculous amounts of money to Haredim as “kosher” phones. But that’s for another post!
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!
I was never a good writer. Not the kind of writing that you read to get information from (that kind of writing I’m not too bad at). I mean the kind of writing where you take a pen and start jotting things down on paper. Suffice to say that when I was in seventh grade “they” sent me to the school psychologist because my handwriting was so bad.
Nowadays, except for signing checks and the like, I do all my writing via the keyboard. For me, it’s not a choice – nobody would be able to read anything I wrote on a pen and paper anyway! And now, after so many years of keyboarding, I’ve practically lost the penmanship skills I ever had anyway!
But for normal people who know what to do with pen and paper, there’s an Israeli invention that lets them digitalize what they’ve written. Pegasus Mobile Note Taker, you can take notes anywhere and on anything, and automatically have it transformed into text, editable in MS Word and the like! Note Taker doesn’t scan your writing, but actually converts what you write into text. And while there are plenty of digital pads and pens out there that can do the same thing, the chidush here is that you can use regular paper – pads, notebooks, or wherever you take notes.
That sounds cool enough, but if you already have your laptop on the table, why would you want to take notes on a pad using a regular notebook? Seems as if it would be easier to just type directly into the computer! Ah, but Note Taker goes beyond the screen; you can connect the device not just to a computer, but to a cell device too – via Bluetooth! So, if you have a smartphone, you don’t need to shlep a laptop to meetings – just turn your phone and your Note Taker on, start writing, and your text will get recorded as a document in your cell device, for later uploading to your computer!
That in an of itself makes Note Taker extremely useful. But I thought of something even better: Besides a small piece of hardware that you connect to your pad, the system includes OCR software that automatically reads and converts your writing into onscreen text. But it works with graphics as well – so if you’re an artist who draws on paper or even canvas, you can automatically digitize your artwork while you work, with a digital copy of your canvas masterpiece on-screen. Thinking about this aspect of Note Taker’s capability, I got a good business idea for artists – professional or even aspiring:
Paint something good and get the original of your work into an art gallery or even public institution somewhere, and then sell digital prints of your masterpiece that’s hanging in, for example, city hall! You can appeal to civic pride of town residents, who no doubt would be motivated to buy a reasonably priced copy of a work that graces one of their fine city’s prestigious institutions. Plus, if you’ve donated the original work, you get credit for your public mindedness – always a marketing plus! Set up a website promoting your work and put together an e-mail marketing campaign to reach your customers; as orders come in, you can print out your work one piece at a time, saving money on the up front investment you usually have to make in producing copies of artwork. Find a printer, make a deal on production, and you’re on your way to fame and fortune!
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.
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!
The price of gas may have gone down, but more people are out of work – so incidences of gas theft are probably as common now as they were a year ago, when gas was $4 a gallon in the US (and $7+ in Israel!). According to insurance industry officials, about 4% of the diesel fuel on tanker trucks is stolen every year. I’m sure it’s at least as bad elsewhere.
To prevent such theft, Israel’s Ituran (they have an American site as well), which makes vehicle theft tracking systems, among other things, has come out with a gas-tracking system! According to the company, the device, developed at a cost of about $100,000, was “designed to provide an electronic solution to prevent thieves from stealing fuel, warning them off while they are in the act, without causing any potential risk” of fire or explosion in the gas tank (apparently it was an issue from an engineering point of view, to place an electronic detector next to or in the gas tank).
One side of the device is active only when the vehicle is turned off, and its sensors read the amount of fuel in the tank; the other side is connected to the vehicle’s theft alert system. If the fuel level begins to go down while the vehicle is parked, the warning system tracks down the owner – just like it would if the vehicle were being stolen. The device can also be programmed to check fuel levels while the vehicle is turned on ensuring that the fuel depletion rate is correct (in the case of trucks, the company says, that’s about 1 liter of diesel fuel every two or three kilometers). Why? Because apparently lots of drivers are in on this fuel theft scam – instead of “gassing up” at a service station, they “gas out” at secret, hidden gas tanks at the side of roads, and sell the fuel later!
According to Ituran’s figures, a company with a fleet with 15 trucks, each of which loses 20-30 liters of fuel a week to “shrinkage,” can save up to 3 million shekels a year ($750,000!). Even assuming the cost of fuel in Israel is double, it’s still a great investment for U.S. fleets as well.
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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That sounds cool enough, but if you already have your laptop on the table, why would you want to take notes on a pad using a regular notebook? Seems as if it would be easier to just type directly into the computer! Ah, but Note Taker goes beyond the screen; you can connect the device not just to a computer, but to a cell device too – via Bluetooth! So, if you have a smartphone, you don’t need to shlep a laptop to meetings – just turn your phone and your Note Taker on, start writing, and your text will get recorded as a document in your cell device, for later uploading to your computer!![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3dea3b84-1e50-4823-96dc-cec99f49e700)
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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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