Israel Active

Security improvements will reduce delays for tourists at Ben Gurion Airport in time for Eurovision. Delegations can be pre-registered. Facial recognition will speed up passengers with biometric passports. And machines will (initially) ask “did you pack your own baggage?”.

Israel’s Rail Vision has developed revolutionary technology that prevents accidents involving trains by ensuring they have an adequate stopping time. Rail Vision’s thermal sensor can identify hazards up to two miles away. Rail Vision has just raised $10 million.

Tel Aviv is testing new “zombie” traffic lights, designed to alert pedestrians too absorbed on their smartphone to look up at the signals. Bright LED light strips set into the sidewalks at one Tel Aviv road junction will turn red or green in sync with the traffic lights. (See this very “appropriate” cartoon or )

I reported previously on the vehicle cyber security systems from Israel’s ERM Advanced Telematics. ERM has now launched eVoice for fleet managers to warn their drivers of safety violations. eVoice will issue a real-time audio alert if a driver performs a dangerous maneuver.

Israel’s Iguazio offers data management services and tools designed to improve the performance, security, and scalability of machine learning applications. Samsung SDS is funding Iguazio and will incorporate its technology into Samsung’s cloud services portfolio. See Iguazio on CNBC and BBC.    

You’ve probably seen movies where someone walks into a company, plugs a device into one of the computers and starts copying sensitive data.  Not possible with protection from Israel’s Sepio Systems.  European energy giant EDP just made a strategic investment in Sepio.    

Microsoft is to host a two-day “hackathon” in Tel Aviv in April. 150 participants will attempt to tackle issues of accessibility arising from the live broadcast of the Eurovision Song contest and maximize viewer experience. Israeli is hosting the 2019 Eurovision from 14th to 18th May.

I reported previously on Israel’s Prospera and its AI systems to help farmers better monitor their crops.  Prospera is now partnering with US Valmont Industries (part of Valley Irrigation) to provide growers with autonomous crop management solutions.

Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute are improving global food security e.g. by figuring out how plants can better resist drought and provide higher-quality nutrition. They have also devised a method of killing a parasitic weed that was destroying corn crops in sub-Saharan Africa.

Israel’s Photomyne won the Top 100 award at the Red Herring Top 100 Europe conference.  Photomyne aims to use its photo scanning app, with Machine Learning / AI technology, to produce the largest indexed photo collection of the pre-digital era.