Knowing when trees are thirsty
Several Israeli companies monitor the condition of trees and crops (see ). Another is Treetoscope - its Sap Flow sensors are inserted into the tree trunk to continuously measure water flow in almond, avocado, citrus, apple trees and vines. It is now partnering global leader Toro.
Growing mushroom burgers
Israeli startup Kinoko (see previously) is cultivating a high-protein food from mycelium - the thin underground fungal threads that mushrooms grow on. Kinoko uses lentils and other legumes as a nutrition source. In four days, it grows a ready-to-cook burger, sausage, meatball, kebab, or patty.
Knowledge is power
Israel’s Aiola has developed state-of-the-art voice and image recognition combined with advanced AI models to digitize, automate, and streamline inspection processes. It also offers its technology to companies to capture, curate and share customer data from customer communications and business meetings.
Spice up your writing
Israel’s Wordtune (see previously) has launched “Wordtune Spices”. The new AI Natural Language Processing (NLP) feature acts like a co-writer, to improve and enhance any text with a choice of 12 helping cues. These include statistics to bolster an argument, or jokes to add in a wedding speech.
Cleaning up Hong Kong
Israel’s Verobotics (see previously) has just won a $5.4 million contract for its AI-powered vertical robots to clean and inspect the exterior of high-rise buildings in Hong Kong.
Seeing in low light
Israel’s Inuitive (see previously) has partnered Finland’s Visidon to co-develop and launch a high performing, accurate, and real-time low light enhancement to Inuitive’s NU4100 vision-on-chip processor. It will reduce the cost of systems (e.g., night drones) that relied on powerful sensors.
Self-driving buses
More details on the pilot projects for autonomous buses reported previously . The first will be a driverless shuttle service managed by Israel’s Nateev Express at the Sheba Medical Center. Israel’s Imagry (see previously) is to deploy its map-less autonomous driving software.
360-degree radar for autonomous vehicles
Israel’s Arbe Robotics (see previously) has launched its latest feature – imaging to give a 360° radar-based perception, the first AI based integrated analysis of a complete vehicle surroundings. Arbe won a 2023 CES Innovation Award – for the second year in a row.
Securing the power lines
Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) has signed an agreement with Israel’s Prisma Photonics (see previously). The PrismaFlow system will use optical fibers to monitor 1,000 km of the national transmission grid - some 20% of the total grid. It already monitors gas pipeline segments in Israel.
$8.4 million for nine BIRD projects
The Israeli startups receiving funds from the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation include Amarel, Apeiro Motion, , Cielo Inertial, , , , and Xerient (pancreatic cancer).