Category Archive » Innovation

Professory Yoram Oren, an expert on water desaliniation from Ben Gurion University, spent his sabbatical year in India. He set up a water research laboratoy at Karunya University in Tamil Nadu India to help rehabilitate the polluted river.

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The lab manages the most advanced projects in capital markets, combining technological challenges in big data and related fields.

Citi Global Markets has opened a global financial data intelligence lab in Israel, as part of Citi’s Technology Innovation Center. The financial data intelligence lab will be one of the main focus areas of the Innovation Center in 2013 and is expected to grow considerably. The decision to open the lab in Israel was based on Israel’s potential talent and activities in data.

The lab currently manages several of the most advanced projects in capital markets, combining technological challenges in data science big data, and related fields. Specifically, the lab leads projects of complex processing in large real time data.

Citi hired Dr. Oren Glickman to head the lab’s research team. The research team will hire local talent with academic skills and expertise in related fields such as machine learning and data mining.

Citi Technology Innovation Center in Israel head Lyron Wahrmann said, “Today’s rapidly changing business environment and technological trends force financial institutions to be innovative. This new financial data intelligence lab will allow Citi to leverage existing capabilities, develop new business opportunities and lower business costs.”

Citi FX and Local Markets global head Anil Prasad said, “Big Data analysis is set to become an ever more critical element in our business. Our job is to analyze the world, capture as much flow as we can and use that both to advise our clients on what we think markets will do in the future and provide them with the liquidity to execute. Giving client’s advice on the market and what it’s going to do and providing them the ability to hedge or invest makes our clients happier and makes our business better. That, I believe, is what big data analysis has the capacity to do. For this reason, one of the hottest areas in terms of hiring in our business right now is data scientists.”

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 3, 2013

As Vine celebrates a full two months on the App Store, other video-centric apps are making their public debut, not least of which is Glide.

Glide lets you enjoy video chat on your own schedule. Just as we’ve grown tired of watching our favorite TV Shows live, Glide lets you record and broadcast videos in real-time, which are then saved to the cloud for on-demand consumption later on.

That said, users can still enjoy good ol’ live video chat in real time, but just in case your long-distance girlfriend or your mom can’t tune in right at that second, it doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy seeing your smiling, expressive face in video format later.

The app features live video chat for groups as well, letting you create and store various clusters of friends to video chat with. And Glide also promises that the app’s data usage is “half of what is required for a conventional video call,” with conventional likely referring to a Skype or FaceTime.

You can also send text messages and use emojis, even in the context of a live video chat.

Glide has raised over seven figures in funding, but isn’t disclosing the exact amount it took from stakeholders Orey Gilliam, former CEO of ICQ and AOL IM, and Philippe Schwartz, founder and former CEO of ooVoo.

Glide comes out of Israel, where the app soft-launched a few weeks ago. According to the founders, Glide is working on an Android version of the app as we speak.

Considering that both iPhone and Android users have video chat built right into their phones, and that Skype is readily available on most mobile devices, breaking into this tough market could be difficult. Especially when we remember that a good majority of users still prefer texting to the hassle of a choppy, low-quality video call.

However, the fact that Glide lets you choose between real-time and on-demand consumption of video could be a boon for the company. And with the help of ooVoo founder Phillippe Schwartz, they should be able to tackle the younger demographics who are gobbling up ooVoo like it’s thanksgiving dinner.

Glide is available now in the Apple App Store for free.

Source: Techcrunch.com

The multinational chip giant is reportedly in negotiations to acquire Omek Interactive, a Beit Shemesh-based start-up that develops software that creates an interface for identifying gestures through the use of three-dimensional cameras.

The multinational chip giant Intel is reportedly in negotiations to acquire Omek Interactive, a Beit Shemesh-based start-up that develops gesture-recognition and tracking technology.

Intel competitors Qualcomm and Samsung are also considering bidding on the Israeli company, according to a report published Friday by the website VentureBeat. The article quoted one source, however, as saying a bidding war for Omek is unlikely.

Intel did not respond to the news of its interest in the start-up, which develops software that creates an interface for identifying gestures through the use of three-dimensional cameras.

Omek CEO Janine Kutliroff told VentureBeat: “Omek is always having conversations of a strategic or financial nature. We never comment on rumors in the marketplace.”

VentureBeat reported that “For these companies [Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung], gesture control technology is attractive as it offers a way to simplify increasingly sophisticated devices, draw customers to cool sci-fi-like devices, and chew up a lot of computing power that can be produced by their future chips.”

Omek Interactive was founded in 2007 by Kutliroff and her husband, Gershom Kutliroff, who is Omek’s VP for technology. According to the company website, Janine Kutliroff was CEO of IDT Global Israel and has a degree in applied mathematics from Columbia University in New York.

The company has raised about $14 million to date. It raised $3.5 million during its first financing round, including funds from the Kutliroffs. A second round in 2011 generated $3.8 million from the U.S. investment fund Artists & Instigators, which according to its website invests in “creators who are crafting game-changing businesses.” A third financing round, also in 2011, raised $7 million and was led by Intel’s investment arm, Intel Capital.

Jim Moore, a technology mergers and acquisitions executive, commented on the possible acquisition in VentureBeat: “In this case, using depth of field camera data for gesture input will allow people to control their computers without touching them.”

“It is [the] early days for this technology as the application builders will need to build this into their interface and functionality,” he said. “But the possibilities are enormous.” In addition to Omek, Israel has spawned an impressive number of gesture-recognition companies, including PrimeSense, which developed the chip that Microsoft’s first generation of Kinect systems was based on.

Source: Haaretz.com

Israel is the world leader in ‘In Vitro Fertilization

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Israel developed a new acne treatment, the ClearLight device. The device produces high intensity, ultraviolet light that causes the bacteria in acne to self-destruct, without damaging the skin or tissue.

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