Israel Active

Since January, NatWest, one of the largest banks in the UK, has deployed technology from Israeli cybersecurity firm BioCatch within its private banking arm Coutts and for some of its business customers, successfully preventing online fraud and helping to protect its 14 million customers.

I reported previously on the Raptor smart glasses for cyclists, developed by Elbit unit Everysight.  A test program is being launched for the Augmented Reality (AR) aimed to boost training and enhance performance, fitness and health.

Israel and Germany have set up a three-year, 30 million Euro plan to promote joint nanotechnology initiatives. The program will support joint projects and aims to boost cooperation between companies and research centers in the nanotechnology sector in Israel and Germany.

A recent workshop at Israel’s Technion presented the latest research cooperation between the Technion and Shantou University to help solve China’s severe ecological challenges. It will increase dramatically when the Guangdong Technion Israel Institute of Technology (TGIT) is completed.

Israel’s Nexar has come a long way since I’ve been reporting it. In addition to its “bad driver” reporting function, it now says it has created the world’s first vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) network that aims to detect dangers on the road and prevent collisions.

The cyber solutions from Israel’s Aperio alert and take action when hackers try to damage critical infrastructures, such as electricity grids or water supply networks. They detect anomalies, such as a wrong noise or temperature, in an apparently otherwise perfectly working device.

Israel’s Inokim, based in Moshav Avichail, has launched a new electric scooter - the Quick 3, which can be folded in 3 seconds and taken on a bus or a train. The scooter can travel 30 km on a full charge, at a speed of 25 km per hour. It can be activated and secured by smartphone app.

One of the Israeli companies highlighted at the CSR Experience Conference (see above) is the Hadera Paper company, producer of the world’s most recycled & environment-friendly paper.  Repaper is made entirely of wastepaper and free of cellulous or any polluting chemicals.

Israeli startup Oryx Vision has raised $17 million to build a depth sensing solution for autonomous vehicles. Its “coherent optical radar” is based on a long-wave infrared laser and nano-antennas that receive light waves like radio waves. Unlike alternatives, Oryx’s system can see in fog.

Assessing a diamond’s color and clarity used to be a laborious and subjective manual process. Now Israel’s Sarine Technologies has developed machine learning technologies to automatically and objectively grade the clarity and color of stones, far more accurately than the human eye.