Israel Active

The new IDF approaches a target and in the last moment the navigator sees on the images transmitted from the missile’s camera that there are civilians in the target zone. He then pushes a button and Delilah aborts its attack, returns to the air and stays in the target zone until it gets new instructions.

(Thanks to NoCamels) Bday, an Israeli application running on Facebook, launched its Gift Finder service. According to Bday, the app helps choose the perfect gift, “based not only on recipients’ Facebook Likes but also a thorough analysis of the sentiment attached to those Likes.

Great video showing some of Israel’s projects, e.g. 500 water schemes in Rumania, preventing leakage in Moscow, irrigating sugar cane plantations in South Africa, recycling waste water at the Beijing Olympics, fish farm hydroponics in Turkey and desalination in Cyprus.

By next year, 75% of Israeli households will be using desalinated water, according to Mekorot - Israel’s national water company.

Aqwise began as a small start-up, which developed innovative technology for the biological treatment of wastewater. Now, 12 years later, the Company is profitable, has 150 installations around the world, and operates in over 20 countries including China, India, Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, the U.S.A. and Central and South America.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the statistics show that Tel Aviv beats London, Berlin and every other European city. It hosts 600 early stage companies. Access to venture capital is double that of the USA and 20 times that of Europe.

The Israeli investment group Trendlines is bringing 13 Israeli start-ups (including ApiFix – see above) to Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore and New York City in March. The road show includes five-minute company presentations to attendees, as well as “speed-date” meetings with potential early-stage investors.

Israel’s Seeds Technologies DM of Kfar Ruth has developed the “black galaxy” tomato variety. The colour was derived from blueberries and introduced into the species. The pigment provides the tomato with a high concentration of antioxidants and vitamin C.

In a continuing effort to reach the goal of 10% renewable power by 2020, Israel has recently been issuing a slew of new solar licences, including a 120 MW thermal solar plant that will be built outside Kibbutz Zeelim and a 60 MW thermal solar plant to be constructed outside Kibbutz Mashabei Sadeh, both located in the Negev Desert and estimated to be operational by 2014.

Israel’s Elbit Systems has unveiled a hyper-spectral electro-optics imaging payload with revolutionary intelligence capabilities that will soon allow the IDF to better identify enemy targets hidden by camouflage.