Israel Active

Israeli religious high school students won third place out of 1,500 candidates – in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh. Nerya Stroh and Gal Oren, designed AquaStop - a user-friendly computerized device that detects and stops water leaks in buildings.

Israel-based Macadamia Apps, have developed StillShot that analyses videos taken on an iPhone and extracts each frame as an individual photo.

Big article in ComputerWorld magazine publicising Israel as the land where the USB flash drive was invented and where innovative companies such as Anobit and XtremIO are drawing American companies to their shores in droves to get a piece of the intellectual property pie.

In Israel the place to learn Hebrew is at ulpan – an intensive school. But a similar method is being used to help budding entrepreneurs learn how to succeed at running a hi-tech business. I featured Google’s R&D incubator previously; here you can also read about Haifa’s hiCentre.

Scientists in Israel, the USA and Japan have recalibrated rock-dating clocks due to a previous erroneous estimate of the half-life of samarium-146 (146Sm). The solar system is now thought to have been formed much quicker – although it is still reckoned to be over 4.5 billion years old.

Is it a bird or a plane? No, it’s an Israeli Unmanned Ariel Vehicle. It weighs less than 20 grams and can “see” into the most sensitive establishments. Watch out Ahmadinejad – Israel is watching you.

Daniel Hershkowitz, Israel’s minister of science and technology, was interviewed by Scientific American magazine about Israel’s homegrown platforms for launching satellites into space.

(thanks to Israel21c and Globes) A new Israeli app called Zappix takes the frustration out of automated customer-service call centres, by putting menu choices into a visual screen on your phone. No elevator music or wasted time; just press the menu option to get straight through to the department you want.

(thanks to NoCamels) The Israeli National Center for Electrochemical Propulsion was founded one month ago, with the sole purpose to research and develop new technologies that can store electricity more effectively.

The Israeli pavilion at Korea’s Expo 2012 captures Israel's unique marine offering as characterized across technology, science, education, culture and environment. Visitors will be able to re-live their visit with the Israel Pavilion 2012 app, available to smartphone and tablet users.