Symptoms of scoliosis include back pain, leg length discrepancy and uneven hips. Patients with AIS may have one shoulder higher than the other and visible curving of the spine to one side. Progressive scoliosis, left untreated, can result in significant deformity.

ApiFix is an Israeli company developing a minimally invasive correction system for adolescent patients with a curvature of the spine of over 40 degrees.

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Currently, although there are procedures available for very young children with scoliosis, there is no similar treatment for grown AIS patients on the market, ApiFix says. In addition, traditional treatment models for AIS are usually invasive surgeries that can leave complications and side-effects.

ApiFix might be able to offer a new solution that is less invasive, thereby reducing the risk of full-blown surgery.

Allowing the body to adjust

Uri Arnin, co-founder of ApiFix tells NoCamels that the problem with the conventional surgery is that “the physician is trying to fix the spine that has built itself in a deformed shape for many years, at one time, which is very difficult.”

Correction using only two screws

The ApiFix system incorporates a miniature ratchet mechanism that captures incremental corrections performed by the patient in the corrective direction. The deformity correction process is spanned over several months to allow the soft tissues to accommodate any minor correction.

ApiFix uses only two screws and a small expandable rod in between. The contraption is inserted through a small incision. A patented control mechanism enables the surgeon to access a control feature that can lock or un-lock the ratchet system at any time.

Arnin says: “After the operation, as the patient does spontaneous bending to the corrective direction, a miniature ratchet mechanism incorporated in the system to capture any minor correction. The soft tissues are then allowed to accommodate the correction along time. The patient gets accustomed to the new position, and the process is then repeated in a step-by-step process, over several months allowing the body to get adjusted.”

Currently, according to Arnin, conventional surgery involves fusing an average of 10 spinal levels using many screws, in a six-hour procedure that can cost up to $100,000.

Clinical trials in Europe

ApiFix, was founded in 2010 by Uri Arnin and Prof. Yizhar Floman, and is backed by The Trendlines Group, an Israeli seed stage investment group. Arnin has over ten years of experience in the spinal field and was inventor and CTO of Impliant Inc., along with Spine21 Ltd. Floman is a leading Israeli spine surgeon and chairman of the Israel Spine Centre at Assuta Hospital. He is also the President of the Israel Spine Society and is a member of the Scoliosis Research Society, the international Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine, the Spine Society of Europe and the North American Spine Society.

ApiFix is currently undergoing clinical trials in Europe.

According to Arnin, “our timing is tied to budget and once we have additional funding it will take one year to be on the market. We are looking to complete the first cases, and based on the outcome of the clinical cases, we will raise additional money to get approval and then the device can be commercialised.”

The app automatically identifies your friends by name before or after you take their photo. In most cases, KLIK can identify the person in the frame before snapping the photo, and the name will then appear directly over their face in the camera’s viewpane.

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The production release of the application incorporates a new Learn mode that allows users to instantly train the system and improve recognition. Learn mode acts as a training mechanism helping KLIK to better recognize that face for future recognition and tagging. It also serves as a means for manually adding someone to the group of recognizable faces.

Face filters

In addition, KLIK incorporates new custom photo filters, called “Face Filters,” designed specifically around photos with faces. While most photo filters apply their effects to the entire photo, regardless of its content, Face Filters are dynamic based on the location, size and number of faces in a photo.

The company also offers a platform for developers and publishers  who wish to instantly integrate social networks, photo sharing sites and search engines. By using the platform they can automatically detect and recognize faces in photos and create their own original apps that leverage the facial recognition technology, algorithms and access to tagged faces.

To use the app, users need to configure it with their Facebook account, so that it can have a database that serves to identify their associates and friends. If KLIK can’t figure out who someone is, users can manually tag them and the app is can then recognize them in future images.

KLIKS' Face Filters feature

Photos taken with KLIK can also be shared on Facebook and Twitter or via email. The app also offers feeds of nearby photos and friends’ photos, tagging photos from the camera roll, and social sharing to Facebook, Twitter, email, and publicly on KLIK itself.

KLIK has a some of privacy levels built-in, as the app will only identify people a user has previously tagged or people in a user’s social network who have already agreed to connect and share with the software’s owner.

Face.com was launched in 2007 and has offices in Tel Aviv and New York.

Dream Doctors in Israel is building a nationwide professional community of medical clowns who learn a combination of nursing and comedy skills to make hospital experience less traumatic and more pleasant for children.

The project started 10 years ago, with only three clowns in one hospital. Today Dream Doctors has 72 professional clowns active in various pediatric wards and clinics at 20 hospitals across the country.

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While hospitals around the world invite clowns as visiting entertainers, at Dream Doctors the clowns are a full-time part of the medical staff. This project turns “clown therapy” into a standardized, research-backed healthcare profession. In this model, the clown therapist is not an outsider but a member of staff, with regular hours and responsibilities.

Part of the medical staff

Daniel Shriqui, director of the Dream Doctors Project, tells NoCamels: “In other places clowns come into hospitals in the afternoon, after rounds are over. Here, we work integrally together during rounds. I don’t see the medical clowns differently than any other part of the team. It’s not entertainment, it’s not just a performance; it’s therapy.”

But what does medical clowning have to offer? Shriqui explains that “medical clowning is about taking a reality that can be horrible, and putting it in another way, so the child will experience it from another place.” He adds that “if you want to understand a child, you have to go inside his world and play his game. The best way to work with children is with the imagination of their world. This way you empower them. This is what we do. And if the child is more positive, the whole atmosphere is better.”

According to Shriqui, “there are many children that come back to visit the clown. There are children who won’t go through the procedure without the clown. Once the doctor starts with a clown, he won’t finish it without one.”

The criteria to become a medical clown are demanding and Dream Doctors requires academic training. “In our organization in Israel, we try to pick mature people with families, who have experience in the theater arts and a rich world from which they can relate to the children and they have to go through a difficult training,” says Karin Schneid, program coordinator for the Magi Foundation that funds Dream Doctors.

“We also encourage them to get a degree from Haifa University, where we have a one-of-a-kind accredited BA program in clown therapy. We are also planning a master’s program. But mostly, you have to have a great heart.”

Clowning therapy requires therapeutic, medical, artistic, psychological and nursing skills. Shriqui mentions that “the clown makes a show where the hero is the patient.” As a Dream Doctor clown put it: “Laughter and pain, and happiness and sadness are all mixed up in our work.”

Pain relief, stress reduction

Research on medical clowning was conducted in Israel and results suggest that putting trained clowns on the medical team leads to measurable benefits in pain relief, stress reduction and stronger immunity. “Even before research was conducted you could tell it was successful because of the growing demand from children, parents and doctors to bring in clowns,” says Shriqui.

Dr. Amos Etzioni, director at one of the participating hospitals, adds: “I have no doubts that since Dream Doctors came to us four years ago, we have seen incredible changes in everything that is happening in the hospital.”

To date, only ten Israeli hospitals are not employing Dream Doctors and the waiting list is growing larger from clinics in demand of clowns.

Nearly one hundred thousand patients, mainly children, are annually exposed to medical clowns in Israel.

Dream Doctors is now planning to turn to elderly patients, particularly those with Alzheimer’s disease and Dementia.

Bridging the gap

The success of this paramedical model is also apparent in the growing global interest, especially from the United States, Canada and Australia. In an international congress that took place in Jerusalem last October, over 250 representatives from 20 countries came to inquire about the medical clowning approach.

In the meantime, the Dream Doctors project is also reaching out to third-world countries. In January 2010, they contributed to the humanitarian mission to hospitals and orphanages in Haiti following the earthquake.

Additionally, Dream Doctors says they are a tool to bridge the gap between different cultures in Israel. Hospitals in in the country are multicultural meeting grounds for immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews, Bedouin, Druse and Israeli Arabs.

“Clowns facilitate interactions across religious, ethnic and national lines. Their expressive abilities enable them to bridge between opposites, elicit smiles and inspire trust in the medical team and the treatment process,” says Shriqui.

The WatchLock – a lock enforced with special GPS and cellular chips – allows owners to track its location anywhere in the world, and send them a text message should anyone try to pry it open.

The system is the first of its kind in the world and is one of the leading candidates for the IFSEC 2012 innovation awards.

Held in the UK in mid May, IFSEC is the largest annual security event in Britain and one of the most prestigious in the world.

WatchLock looks like a slightly oversized version of a standard lock, but its unique system sends out its location at any given time.

The system keeps a log of every time the lock is opened and should anything but its key be used, it alerts the owner by SMS or email immediately.

The locator system is not power-dependent, making it ideal for securing remote locations or moving objects, such as trucks or containers.

To continue reading this article, click here
Via Ynet News
Photo by MutlitLock

The concept of the game is that the player helps a virtual granny dust off her piano from invading germs. While doing this, the user is learning the musical notes and rhythm of a piano, gaining knowledge while practicing.

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The app lets users play popular and entertaining songs at their own pace, collecting points and bonuses as they increase their experience. The game can also be played in conjunction with a real piano. In case the player doesn’t have a real piano at home, a 3D virtual keyboard comes with the game.

Virtual piano for every age

Piano Dust Buster is not the only application that helps users learn an instrument. Rock Band and Wild Chords are just some of them. But what sets the Joytunes app apart is that it does not require an physical instrument.

“We want this game to be embraced by music teachers, children and parents as a wonderful introduction to music,” says Yuval Kaminka, JoyTunes co-founder and CEO. “Children sometimes think of piano practice as boring, but as every music teacher knows, practice makes perfect. Piano Dust Buster uses engaging gaming dynamics, that are fun, interactive, and will keep them learning and practicing,” he adds.

Learning to play with Dust Buster

The current music catalogue includes a variety of songs with degrees of difficulty, from classical to pop favorites and folk tunes, including such classics as “Fur Elise,” “The Entertainer” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The game also has a mode for beginners to help them learn how to read sheet music.

Kaminka says that “85 percent of adults surveyed wished they knew how to play an instrument. Now parents and other adults can ‘dust off’ their old pianos and recapture the magic of playing music.”

The iPad game is free for now, but a future revenue model is to sell additional content and songs for a fee.

JoyTunes, based in Kfar Saba, Israel, was founded in 2010. The team is made up of developers, musicians and music educators. The company is privately funded by Genesis Partners, Founder Collective, Joe Lonsdale and individual angel investors.

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In the year since its release, iOnRoad has won four awards, including a top design and engineering award at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. So far, half a million people have downloaded the free app for their Android phones, a number that is guaranteed to shoot up when the app becomes available for iPhone and iPad in the near future. And most importantly, said Atzmon, “I constantly get letters from people telling me that the app saved their life.”

Using augmented reality technology, iOnRoad pairs the usual smartphone hardware — GPS/location services, cameras, and accelerometers — with advanced algorithms that turn the phone into an intelligent road safety system that will warn drivers of dangerous situations on the road. Made for mounting on your car’s windshield (the iOnRoad site has links to Amazon and other online stores where you can buy mounting equipment cheap), iOnPhone’s main purpose is to keep you from getting into a collision.

For example, when you get too close to the car ahead of you, iOnRoad will issue a video warning in yellow if you’re a little too close, or in red if you’re way too close, along with an audio warning. The app also measures your “headway distance,” telling you how much time you have before you’re in danger. iOnPhone tells you how fast you’re going, and lets you know when you’re exceeding the speed limit. The app also gives you a “personal web dashboard,” on which you can play music, make a phone call, or check a map with a single touch and with minimal distraction from your driving.

Besides all that, iOnRoad lets you help out other drivers by taking photos of road hazards or bad drivers and uploading them to Facebook. The app assigns points for safe driving, and you can compete against other iOnRoad drivers for the title of safest driver. And, the app will also, if you ask it to, record your parking spot (both with GPS and a photo), and guide you back to your vehicle using a directing arrow on a map.

Atzmon, a computer graphics veteran, developed iOnRoad during the course of his work at his other company, called PicItUp, an alternative search engine that lets you easily find graphics and images online. PicItUp is still active, and has helped online retailers large and small enable customers to more easily find the products they are looking for.

iOnRoad’s safety features sound somewhat similar to another Israeli road safety innovation, called MobileEye, which also prevents crashes by detecting when you are getting too close to other vehicles on the road. But Atzmon believes that his implementation is better. “MobileEye is a hardware system, and needs to be installed in a car by a professional.

iOnRoad's smartphone display

But anyone can download our app and begin using it immediately, so it’s much more accessible.” And currently, iOnRoad is the only software-based solution of its kind. Atzmon, understandably, can’t cite statistics about how many accidents iOnRoad has actually prevented, but he suspects that the number is high. “Over the past year, we’ve seen how the number of per-driver crash warnings has gone down significantly, indicating that drivers who are using iOnRoad are driving more safely.”

Those increased safe driving practices could one day turn into insurance savings, as well. iOnRoad already uses a point system to rank driver behaviors, with the best drivers getting the highest points. Atzmon foresees a scenario where drivers can voluntarily opt in to an insurance company monitoring program that will provide discounts to safe drivers, based on the iOnRoad system. “Insurance premiums are high for everyone, because the good drivers have to carry the bad ones,” said Atzmon. “Why should the good drivers be punished? I think we would be able to decrease premiums for two thirds of all drivers using iOnRoad.”
…

To continue reading this article, click here.
Via The Times of Israel
Photos courtesy of iOnRoad

Yotpo is an Israeli startup that says it can sift through the maze of online reviews and find those most relevant for you, with reviews of people in your social network at the top.

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Personalization algorithm

After looking through all the reviews on an item, Yotpo’s algorithm gathers several opinions and creates targeted excerpts for users. Its filtering is based on parameters such as user rankings or the reviewer’s relation to the searcher, based on the user’s online social profile.

Bloggers who write reviews can integrate Yotpo into their website, so that their posts can be scanned by the company and brought to users’ attention.

Yotpo’s says its platform can also be used by eCommerce sites, as it allows them to show their potential buyers real-time, aggregated reviews from across the web – “giving them confidence in their purchase.”

“We reached a catch-22-situation in which you cannot lure people without the content, and the content cannot be created without people. Our solution to that problem was to create this platform, which will have couriers throughout blogs and eCommerce sites,” says Yotpo’s cofounder Omri Cohen.

Trusting the people we know

The Tel- Aviv based startup was founded 14 months ago by Tomer Tagrin and Omri Cohen, while both were still students at the University of Tel-Aviv and working from Tagrin’s apartment. Three months after launching the Yotpo, the startup received $800,000 in seed funding.

The company’s unusual name stands for “Your Opinion, The Public Opinion” and was started after an online purchase turned out to be disappointing. Tagrin tells NoCamels a group of friends pooled in resources to buy a photography-loving friend a camera.  ”It wasn’t as great as it sounded on the internet,” Tagrin says.

“We looked back to see where we got it wrong and realized we were listening to people we don’t really know,” Tagrin says. “We don’t really know if they are using a real profiles, if they are working for the seller, what they really know about cameras and if they are part of our social graph.”

Changing the exposure to data

While users can install this platform for free, the two Israeli entrepreneurs plan to monetize their company by using the data created on their platform. “Let’s say a user was looking for a skirt. Next time she will enter a site for clothes, the first thing she’ll see will be skirts. That is a valuable asset for those who make the big calls in a way to help them establish their social graph of top costumers,” Tagrin says.

The two say they are planning to dedicate the upcoming year to better understand the market and build a “content machine.”

The alternative to overfishing has been the development of “fish farms” – enclosed areas, usually set up near water sources and coasts, where fish are raised in a controlled environment. They have been around for years, enabling growers to set up controlled conditions that can ensure a specific yield of fish.

But these farms also have limitations. While they enhance the conservation of fish in the sea, fish farms are often considered environmental hazards because of the waste generated by the fish, such as nitrogen, which is then dumped into the sea.

Israeli company GFA says it offers a solution to the geographical and environmental constraints of fish farms: They created a way to run fish farms anywhere, even in extreme conditions like the desert, with minimal damage to the environment.

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Special biological filters

Based on the work of Israeli scientist Dr. Yossi Tal and Hebrew University professor Jaap van Rijn – inventor of the system – GFA has developed an on-land environment where fish can be raised, without having to exchange water or treat it chemically.

“We call this a zero-discharge system,” GFA Advanced Systems CEO Dotan Bar-Noy has said. “We use biological filters and specially developed bacteria to treat the water the fish are growing in, without wasting anything. The system can be set up to raise salt-water fish anywhere in the world – even in the desert, thousands of miles from the ocean,” he said.

Prior to the GFA solution, purification systems were based on electrical treatment systems, which are expensive to install and run, and not all that effective, says Bar-Noy. “Even when they work, the electrical purification systems are too expensive, and fish produced with those systems will cost far more than fish from the sea.”

Tanks using the GFA system are filled with water and fish and then the GFA microbes are added. These microbes treat the nitrogen and organic waste byproducts of fish production right in the tank. No water is discharged at all; in fact the only fluid exchange is the addition of water to replenish that which is lost through evaporation.

The company even alleges that fish grown in tanks purified with their product taste better because of the clean water they grow in.

High-capacity aquaculture

GFA’s system has already been set up in several locations in Israel and the company runs an additional purification facility in New York, which has been operating since 2009. The New York facility produces about 100 tons of fish last yearmostly salt-water fish like sea bream, bass and tilapia.

The resulting system allows for high-capacity aquaculture, with as much as 100 kg of fish per cubic meter of water. In addition, due to the ability to grow fish in any environment, including in large cities, fish can be brought to markets the same day they’re harvested. This enables farmers to reduce transportation time and costs.

The company was formed in 2008, but the technology behind it has been under development for the past 20 years. “While the ideas were there for awhile, the only viable purification techniques were based on electrical devices. It was only with the rise of biotechnology techniques that we were able to develop the bacteria that enable us to do the purification cheaply,” Bar-Noy explains.

Photo by Bytemarks

The bacteria used by GFA’s system are cheap and easy to produce, so any initial costs for purchasing a system are more than offset by the savings realized in not having to clean tanks.

But marketing your product properly can definitely bring you closer to that goal.

A Tel Aviv-based startup called BuzzDoes offers a new mobile marketing platform that incentivizes users to promote apps.

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Spreading the word

By means of a simple code, Buzzdoes’ technology allows for the addition of a special button to the developer’s application. This button appears on the screen of the application, based on the developer’s design.

App users who click the Buzzdoes button can recommend the application to friends from their contact or Facebook lists. Their friends then receive the recommendation by email – and in the future it will be possible to send a SMS or WhatsApp message.

The Buzzdoes screen allows users to see which apps their friends are downloading, thus adding a social element to the application search process.

Earn by sharing

Users who share the app with their friends are automatically rewarded with points that the company says can later be exchanged for cash via PayPal. Users also have the option to donate these points to charity instead.

The service is able to detect when a new user downloads an app following a recommendation he received via BuzzDoes. Users are then rewarded for every download that occurs as a result of their recommendation.

Pay per download model

Developers are billed per actual download that results from the BuzzDoes recommendation of one of the users.

The BuzzDoes screen

The button operates as a drop-in software development kit (SDK) and can be uninstalled. The addition of the Buzzdoes’ SDK is free until the application actually receives new users. In that case, the developer must choose how much the users are going to be rewarded. The reward costs starts at $0.25 per user download and can be increased by the developer at any time. This reward will be given in the form of points to the user that recommended the app.

Assaf Kolirin, BuzzDoes founder and CEO, tells NoCamels: “Today’s app marketing methods are either expensive or inefficient; developers want useful and cost effective ways to distribute their apps.”

“I know the marketing challenges facing developers from my personal experience as an app developer in the past. I have learned how competitive it is and have therefore created an efficient solution for app exposure and distribution,” he adds. “Our apps’ social feature also serves as an advertisement area, giving a new revenue stream,” he adds.

Honored in France

With CTO Lina Bachar Kirshon as a co-founder, Buzzdoes was honored as the most promising start up in the “Lady Pitch Night” competition in France this past month. The competition was held by La Cantine (Silicon Sentier), Orange France, and Girls in Tech, which promotes entrepreneurship among women in Silicon Valley and in various countries.

Last year, Bachar Kirshon founded Buzzdoes together with Assaf Kolirin. The company unveiled its service at the Apps World conference in London, in November 2011. It has already secured $750,000 in seed funding from Proxima Ventures and angel investors in Israel and South America.

The new company will operate under the name Stratasys Ltd. and will have dual headquarters in Minnesota, and Rehovot, Israel.

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Both Objet and Stratasys develop and manufacture 3D printers, which are mainly used to produce prototypes of products in a range of industries. Following the deal, Objet will be valued at $630 million.

“We are excited to be joining forces with Stratasys,” said David Reis, the company’s CEO. “This transaction creates an organization that will provide a broad range of rapid prototyping and direct digital manufacturing applications to our customers, and the ability to bring exciting new products to the market.”

Printing prototypes

Since it was founded 14 years ago, Objet became one of the world’s leaders in the 3D printers market. This niche of three dimensional printers serves primarily industrial companies that operate production lines. During the process, the printer applies a layer of polymer made out of plastic or metal which after a few hours creates fully-functional, flexible and accurate prototypes.

Objet’s holds a range of over 60 3D printing materials which have been adopted by manufacturers in many fields, including automotive, electronics, toys, consumer goods, jewelry and footwear.

Avoiding re-production costs

The price of such a printer starts at $10,000 and can reach up to $400,000. Adidas, Apple and General Motors use these printers to quickly create a prototype of a model or a spare part before production, in order to avoid mistakes during production or after it, thus saving the cost of re-production.

According to sources in the industry, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs used Objet’s prototypes when he was wondering about the design of the iPhone, so did James Cameron in his blockbuster movie “Avatar.”

3D toy castle printed by Objet

The company was founded in 1998 by Rami Bonen, Gershon Miller and Hanan Gotaiit. Today Objet employs approximately 300 people at its headquarters in Rehovot, Israel. The company also has offices near Boston and in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Rheinmünster and Gurgaon, India.

According to research site IVC, it received about $28M from a long list of largely anonymous investors, including their key investor Elan Jaglom (35%), TDA foundation and Leon Recanati.

According to assessments, Objet’s annual revenue stands at $120-$150 million, and has been profitable for many years. According to IBIS world, the global 3D printer market totaled $1.4 billion in 2011, and is set to double by 2016.

Photos courtesy of Objet