Israel Active

The library at Q5 (the fifth quarter) in Jerusalem doesn’t lend out the usual books. Instead it offers top tech & startup books, laptops, smartphones, tablets, processors, kits for assembling robots and cool new gadgets. Its customers include designers, developers and entrepreneurs.

ALYN Hospital, Israel’s only pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation facility, is creating an Innovation Space in Jerusalem for inventions to help special needs kids. The one-stop shop provides a state-of-the-art prototyping lab, expert support and in-house trialing.

Upstream Security is the latest Israeli cybersecurity startup to focus on the automobile security arena Upstream claims to be the first to offer a cloud-based platform that detects and prevents large-scale attacks on connected and autonomous cars. Upstream just raised $2 million of funds.

Israel’s Techsee is a global leader in Visual Support Technologies for the Smart Home.  Techsee is building a massive database of every interaction and resolution to help customers resolve any recurring technical problem via their smartphones. Techsee has just raised $7.5 million of funds.

I reported previously that Israel’s Giraffic achieved high-speed streaming for Virtual Reality (VR) systems.  Now another Israeli company, Inception has developed multi-track real time streaming and spatial audio for a seamless interactive VR experience.

Israeli startup Chooze has launched an iPhone app that helps expectant parents choose the perfect baby name.  Chooze uses the latest in cognitive psychology to help parents decipher their subconscious preferences for names.

Much was reported about Israel’s Water-Gen, demonstrated by Professor Alan Dershowitz at AIPAC Now the Florida suburb of Miami Gardens is partnering with Water-Gen in a pilot project to extract water from airborne humidity and dispense clean drinking water to residents.

Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have proved that mature spruce trees take up carbon molecules in their top branches and pass them down through the soil to nearby beech, larch and pine trees. These travel through underground highways formed by connected root fungi.

Researchers at Israel’s Technion and the University of Haifa have explained for the first time the unique mechanism by which the most common jellyfish attack their enemies.  They inject toxic material from thousands of microscopic syringes, resembling poisoned arrows, located on each of their arms.

To mark United Nations' World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on June 17, here is a video showing how Israel is one of the leading countries fighting desertification, that threatens global hunger, disease, and poverty.