Israel Active

Israeli student Tirosh Shapira has become the first person to meld his mind and movements with a robot surrogate, or avatar. Situated inside an fMRI scanner in Israel, he controlled a humanoid robot 2000 kilometers away, in France, using just his mind.

This new video shows Israel’s satellite development. Israel is working with NASA, Italy (the Shalom project) and France (Venus satellite to study environment and vegetation). It features Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit, Rafael & Space-IL (Israel’s moon mission). In memory of Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut.

Israel’s Spacecom is to build the Amos 6 communications satellite for launching in 2015. Israel Aerospace Industries’ CEO said that Amos 6 will incorporate new technologies that represent a significant leap forward in the capabilities of IAI and the State of Israel in space.

A team from Ben Gurion University has developed Social Privacy Protector (SPP). It performs a deep IT analysis of a facebook “friend” to analyze if it is safe to give them access to your personal social data.

The fantasies of Star Trek may not be that far in the future. Israelis have already invented the Universal Translator and remote medical diagnostics. Now Mordechai Segev, from Israel’s Technion proposes negative radiation pressure to create a tractor beam and move small objects.

The United Nations has selected the Dan Region Wastewater Treatment Plant, known as Shafdan, as a global role model for how local authorities can deal with environmental problems. Shafdan utilizes nearby sands as natural filters for part of the purification process.

World ORT KadimaMada has launched the Advanced Center for Science and Technology at the Sha’ar HaNegev Experimental School. The centre will enable students to study and conduct experiments at the cutting edge of science and technology.

The International Technion Computer Engineering (TCE) conference attracted speakers from Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, IBM, Mellanox, Microsoft and RAD. And from Cambridge, Princeton, UC Berkeley, UCLA and UPenn universities

IBM Haifa’s application will make it possible for consumers to pan store shelves with their cameras on their mobile devices and receive personalized product information, recommendations and coupons while they browse the aisles.

Israel has launched its first-ever international "green" campaign, to promote its achievements in environmental technology. 10-second adverts on CNN stress that Israel is a leader in the development of green technology and that Israeli innovations in the field are used the world over.