Israel Active

At CES 2020 Israel’s Mobileye released this video of a ride through Jerusalem’s busy streets in an autonomous car controlled by Mobileye’s 12-camera sensor suite. It negotiates road works, unprotected left turns, busy roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and some very heavy traffic.  And it doesn’t put a foot wrong.

At CES 2020, Israel’s OrCam launched an upgraded MyEye 2 with AI and voice commands. It has become a wearable Personal Assistant for the visually disabled. OrCam also won the show’s “Best Innovation” award for OrCam Hear, for the hard-of-hearing to follow a conversation in a noisy room.

Israel’s Watergen, the company that turns air into drinking water, was named Energy Efficiency Product of the Year at the 2020 Smart Home Mark of Excellence Awards at CES Las Vegas. Each year, the Consumer Technology Association’s awards recognize the top smart home innovations.

Three dozen Israeli startups exhibited at CES 2020 in Las Vegas (Jan 7 – 10) It is the world’s biggest technology fair with 175,000 attendees. There were 22 startups in the Israeli pavilion. El Al even added an extra flight to arrive on the morning of the first day. It was sold out.

One of many articles highlighting the major technologies and inventions of the past 10 years. Waze, Moovit, Watergen, MarginProbe, Iron Dome, ReWalk, OrCam, 3D-printed heart, NanoGhost, DayTwo and SpaceIL’s Beresheet.  All featured previously in this newsletter

Ben Gurion University Professor Itzhak Mizrahi has already received two European Research Council grants for his research into how microbes degrade plant waste. Now he has received a third one – this time from German research funder Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Following a “technological breakthrough,” Israel’s Defense Ministry has re-started development of a laser beam system capable of destroying incoming rockets and small drones, to complement Iron Dome. The new system is expensive but will have negligible operational costs.

The archives of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) are being converted from film to digital format. The 5-year project will process hundreds of thousands of Betamax tapes, cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes and film recorded between 1948 and May 2017.

Cybertech 2020, the largest annual cybersecurity event in the world outside the US, takes place in Tel Aviv Jan 28 - 30.  Hundreds of Israeli startups are exhibiting and some 18,000 attendees from over 80 countries are expected to attend. Startups will also compete in Cybertech’s Startup Innovation Challenge.

Israel-based Stepac (now part of Johnson Matthey) has launched its latest range of sustainable packaging solutions for preserving the freshness and extending the shelf life of pomegranates and extracted pomegranate seeds and arils.