Saturday, April 04, 2009

Israeli innovations

Three Israeli innovations will alter our world with far-reaching consequences.

A small company in Kfar Saba named "Sportvu" is revolutionizing how we will watch sporting events and other activities. They combine the views from multiple cameras to produce a three-dimensional picture, that the viewer can then see from any angle/direction. For example, the standard camera view is to follow the ball, but in the new version, the viewer can watch the players receiving a goal kick before the ball is kicked. Alternatively they can follow one particular player as he dribbles the ball thru the defence. This technology will soon be applied to American football and basketball. It will also allow the viewer to receive any kind of statistic in real time, for example how far the ball has been moved by one player, or the aggregate goal/touchdown scores at any moment. This will revolutionize our watching of television in general. One of the innovations involves using holograms that allow images from different sites to be unified into a single picture, so no more split screens. This Israeli technology has already been tested successfully by CNN.

Unlimited energy production is promised by another Israeli innovation, deep sea wind farms. Yes, under the sea the water swirls around and near the coastal regions has strong currents that reverse as the tide goes in and out. A new innovation to obtain energy from the deep waves is to have "wind farms" just like those that stand on the hills and by the shores around us, catching the wind, but instead buried in the (not too) deep sea floor. One difference between these sea wind rotors and the conventional ones, is that the water buried ones will have electronic detectors to determine the direction of water flow, and when it reverses the rotor will also be turned into the flow, so that it will continue to produce energy almost 24/7. I know this sounds too good to be true, yet there are large numbers of coastal shelves around the world where huge amounts of energy can be produced. Of course, the initial investment is large, because the rotors must be large and must operate continuously without maintenance. But, the experience with wind technology is now great enough that the extension to underwater wave technology will not be such a giant leap.

At Ben Gurion Airport and several others around the world a new security device has been installed that will make the checking of travellers faster and more efficient. It is the Magshoe, a device into whch the passenger steps without the need to take off his/her shoes, and it checks for metal, and if any is detected then a red light goes on and if not a green light and the person is on their way in a matter of seconds. No more taking off shoes at airports, no more walking in stockinged feet, no more time taken to take off and put on the shoes again, nor more time taken looking for a place to sit in order to do this. Now through this Israeli innovation security is enhanced and passengers are happy.

In many ways Israeli innovations, such as drip irrigation, cell phone technology and computer security advances, are already impacting our lives around the world. For further information see www.israel21c.com
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PS. Sadly I must add that an axe wielding Palestinian terrorist attacked a group of children at the settlement of Bat Ayin yesterday and killed a 13-year old boy and wounded an 8 year old girl. The axe was taken from him in a struggle but he managed to escape. Our new PM Bibi Netanyahu announced that there would be a "no tolerance" policy towards terrorism.

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