No Camels

Will Israel’s ‘Playcast’ Revolutionize Video Game Industry?

Tiffany Stelman, NoCamels — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:26:26 +0000

Israeli Digital Gaming Company Playcast Leading The Shift In Gaming Industry

In 2010, consumers in the United States alone spent approximately $15.5 billion dollars on games content. This number might seem staggering, and yet it is in sharp decline.

This decline is due in part to the shift in our general approach to entertainment content. When it comes to movies, for example, we’ve turned to Youtube, or video-on-demand, instead of purchasing a DVD. Yet game consoles like the Xbox or Playstation still force us to buy games.

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Leading the way towards a significant shift in the gaming industry is Israeli company Playcast. The company’s technology enables cable and satellite television companies to offer the latest games without the need to buy an expensive console or the games themselves, much like your video-on-demand service. The games almost equal the quality of console games, but only require registering for the service and a remote. This new technology is known as “cloud gaming.”

Elad Dror, VP Solutions at Playcast, tells NoCamels: ”As in a VOD channel, all users do is subscribe to the Playcast service for a monthly fee and choose the package that is most relevant to their tastes and gaming.”

Earlier this year Playcast signed an agreement with French carrier Bouygues Telecom SA for its Bbox IPTV subscribers, who will pay monthly subscription fees to use any of the latest games. Playcast also has similar agreements with Portugal Telecom SA and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.

The games are located on a designated channel where Playcast’s portal operates, which offers different game packages, updated every month.

“Cloud gaming not replacing consoles”

Dror tells NoCamels that ”cloud gaming is not here to replace consoles, but is a necessary step in the evolution of video games.”

The company’s employees, he says, “are first and foremost game lovers who respect the place of game consoles and see them as part of the world of gaming.”

Dror said it wasn’t easy to overcome the challenge of streaming the games instantaneously. While streaming video content is like a one way traffic, video games require real-time two-way traffic. “This means that video data needs to flow back and forth at zero delay,” Dror says.

But Guy de Beer, CEO of Playcast, said that while video processing experts might notice a slight reduction in quality compared to consoles, regular users will not.

Playcast is currently working on creating a more seamless interaction between gaming and social networking. Dror says this can mean finding your friends and inviting them to multi-player sessions, uploading brag clips to YouTube, etc.

Conquering the home market

The privately-held company is based in Israel and has operations in seven Western European markets, as well as Singapore, Korea, China, Brazil and the US. According to Dror, it enjoys a steady stream of revenue from its deployments in Europe and Asia. “However, since Playcast is still in the expansion stage – both in terms of R&D and commercially,” he adds, “we are moving on to new territories raising additional funds.”

Playcast, founded in 2007, has one more gaming country it wants to conquer: Israel. “We expect the service to launch in our home market towards the end of this year or in early 2013,” Dror says.

Playcast has so far raised $12.7 million. Investors include Jerusalem Venture Parners and Xenia Venture Capital. The company has 40 employees located in Caesarea, Israel.

Israel’s Secret Project: Super-Battery To Reduce World’s Oil Thirst

Alexandra Mann (translation) — Sun, 20 May 2012 14:32:24 +0000

Quietly and with little media coverage, it seems that Israel has made it its national goal to develop a battery that can provide enough power for a 500 kilometer-drive with a single charge.

One month ago, the Israeli National Center for Electrochemical Propulsion was founded. The center will be inaugurated within the next weeks and will receive a budget of 45 million NIS (approximately $11.7 million) for the next four years.

The center will include one hundred researchers divided into 12 teams from four academic institutions: Tel Aviv University, The Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), Bar Ilan University and Ariel University Center of Samaria.

The center’s sole purpose will be to research and develop new technologies to more effectively store electricity.

Replacing Oil

“Oil has no future, both because of politics and because of future shortages,” said the chairman of the center, Prof. Doron Urbach from Bar Ilan’s Department of Chemistry. “There has been a change in mindset in politicians that has permeated into the automotive industry and has gone all the way to battery manufacturers. They all want electric cars. In fact, it is already possible to drive for 150 kilometers with an electric car, which is enough for the average Israeli, and yet want to increase it.”

A Better Place electric battery charge spot

“The greatest success of modern electrochemistry is the chargeable lithium-ion battery,” Urbach explains. “It’s a great battery for electronic devices, but for a car you’d need many of those batteries.

“Today, a battery like the one Better Place uses in its electric cars weighs 300 kg, enough for a 150 kilometer drive. Our aim is to extend that range without additional weight and volume.”

Improving batteries

A problem that electric car producers regularly encounter is the batteries’ limited speed of electric discharge. In other words – the discharge of energy in a short period of time, as required for car acceleration. The center is therefore working on the development of super-capacitors that can supply the required amount of energy in the desired amount of time.

These capacitors could provide a solution to energy storage, a burning issue in the scientific community. Advanced batteries could reduce dependency on oil, coal and natural gas, which are used to produce electricity. Solar and wind, for example, are not able to continuously produce a large amounts of energy, which means energy storage is one of the main challenges for renewable energies.

The next stage of development will be improving the batteries that are currently used in cars, which according to Urbach are based on technology over one hundred years old. “A car’s battery gives a few hundred cycles and then dies. This isn’t enough, since you cannot depend on batteries that need to be replaced every two to three years.”
…

To continue reading this article in Hebrew, click here.
This article was translated from The Marker

Dreaming To Lose Weight? Sleep Could Be The Answer!

NoCamels Team — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:24:47 +0000

Want to lose wait but find it hard to hit the gym three times a week or eating 1,500 calories per day? You might not have to do either. New research suggest sleeping more could be enough to keep the flab away.

Research into the circadian clock that regulates our sleep-wake cycle shows disruptions to the clock may be linked to metabolic disorders such as obesity and type-2 diabetes.

And researchers say sleeping for eight hours a night and eating during daylight hours could be as important in controlling weight gain as diet and exercise.

Gad Asher, clinician and medical researcher from the Department of Biological Chemistry at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, presented research to a Garvan Institute seminar on obesity in Melbourne last night that found every cell in the body has a circadian clock.

His research team has discovered that a protein related to ageing and metabolism, called SIRT1, is the missing link between the circadian clocks and metabolism and could be a factor in metabolic disorders such as obesity and type-2 diabetes.

This ties with research that shows shift workers who eat late at night and sleep during the day are more susceptible to obesity.

Improving the body’s metabolism

With further research, it is possible the SIRT1 protein could become a target for medicines that might improve the efficiency of the body’s metabolism so humans could burn more fat, Dr. Asher said.

In the meantime, he warned those watching their weight that, “if you don’t eat according to the circadian clock, it can lead to obesity”.

It is important to eat during the day and not during the night to maximize the metabolic response to food and keep weight under control, he said.

Shantha Rajaratnam from Monash University’s School of Psychology and Psychiatry wants to test Dr. Asher’s theories on humans in his sleep laboratory, where he studies the sleep patterns of shift-worker groups and how the circadian clock affects their day-time performance.

Research shows that after just a few days of inadequate sleep, a person’s appetite hormones leptin and ghrelin stimulate increased appetite.

Photo by SashaW

Slideshow: TLV Paints Crosswalks In Rainbow Colors Ahead Of Gay Pride

NoCamels Team — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:05:16 +0000

The municipality of Tel Aviv, known as the gay capital of the Middle East, this week painted selected cross walks across the city in the colors of the gay flag, in anticipation of the gay pride parade on June 8.

Israel And US Combine Efforts To Improve Pediatric Health

NoCamels Team — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:00:07 +0000

A collaboration to address the lack of medical devices designed specifically for children is being launched by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCH) in the UD, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and BGN Technologies in Be’er Sheva, Israel.

The project combines the medical expertise of physicians at Cincinnati Children’s with the extensive technical and engineering capabilities of faculty at BGU, said Netta Cohen, CEO of BGN, the technology commercialization company of BGU.

According to Cohen, the goal is to improve overall health in hospitalized children by ensuring device design that is customized to meet the unique physiological differences and medical needs of children.

“The pediatric sector of medical device development has been neglected throughout the years,” Cohen said. “Only a small fraction of medical research and development funding has been devoted to pediatric medicine.”

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the development of pediatric devices lags years behind the development of adult devices.

Insufficient solutions for children

In reports to the U.S. Congress, the FDA has cited prohibitive development costs for pediatric devices as a significant barrier. Factoring into this is the limited size of the pediatric market and related economic factors.

Children represent only ten percent of the total medical market. As a result, insufficient resources have been channeled to the invention of dedicated surgical and medical devices for the pediatric population. When devices cannot be adapted, physicians often must resort to more invasive treatments or less effective therapies.

“Many devices used today to treat children are actually miniaturized adult devices that do not sufficiently address the clinical needs of children. Pediatric patients vary greatly due to a range of differences in size, anatomy, activity levels, and physiology,” said Dr. Richard Azizkhan, Surgeon-in-Chief in Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

“The challenge with adapted devices is they frequently are not the ideal solution, especially for very small and fragile infants. This collaboration is an opportunity to target new solutions and improve medical outcomes for children.”

Meeting the challenges

Under the BGU-Cincinnati Children’s collaborative structure, medical center physicians will provide detailed insight on specific medical device challenges and development opportunities. This information will be provided to BGU engineers and technology researchers who can match development opportunities with technical solutions.

Assisting with the evaluation of new device concepts for their market potential will be CincyTech, a Cincinnati-based public-private seed-stage investor that collaborates with Cincinnati Children’s on technology commercialization efforts.

Photo by expertinfantry

New JPEGmini Puts Your Photos On A Diet

NoCamels Team — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:48:33 +0000

ICVT, the creators of the JPEGmini and VIDEOmini media optimization technologies, today announced the release of JPEGmini for Mac, a Mac app which frees up hard drive space by reducing photo file size without affecting quality.

With JPEGmini for Mac, users can optimize full photo albums simply by dragging them onto the app. The optimized photos retain the full quality and resolution of the original photos, but are much smaller in file size, so they can be shared much faster with friends and family via email or on social networks. Users can also choose to optimize their whole iPhoto library, or a complete internal or external drive, to free up hard drive space.

How it works

JPEGmini technology has two main components: The first is an image quality detector, which imitates the perceptual qualities of the human visual system, to determine the maximum amount of compression which can be applied to each individual photo without causing visible artifacts.

The second is a unique JPEG encoder, which adapts the JPEG encoding process to the original photos, creating the most compact representation of the photos that is possible under the JPEG standard. Combining these two components enables JPEGmini to achieve an extremely high recompression ratio of up to 5x, or 80 percent reduction on digital photos, depending on their resolution.

JPEGmini's Mac app

“After 3 years of extensive research, and 19 patent applications, we are proud to bring our JPEGmini technology to the mass market with the introduction of JPEGmini for Mac,” said Sharon Carmel, ICVT’s Founder and CEO who founded Emblaze in 1994. “We look forward to empower users around the world with faster photo sharing, and more efficient use of local and online storage.”

JPEGmini for Mac supports personal photos with a resolution of 2 to 17 Megapixels.

Founded in 2009 and backed by private investors, ICVT is developing another optimization technology named VIDEOmini, designed for H.264 video streams.

Photo by rolands.lakis

Study: Smartphone Users More Oblivious To Others

Derek Abma, Postmedia News — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:50:35 +0000

Users of smartphones, such as iPhones and BlackBerrys, have a different sense of privacy and of the appropriateness of public cellphone usage compared to users of more traditional mobile devices, a study shows.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University drew these conclusions after studying the attitudes of about 150 people in Israel.

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Eran Toch, from the school’s department of industrial engineering, said in statement that smartphone users tend to have an illusion of being in a “privacy bubble” when using their devices in public.

More talking in public

The research found that people with smartphones were 70 per cent more likely than those with less advanced cellphones to think their devices gave them a fair degree of privacy when using them in public.

Smartphone users were also 20 per cent less likely to think talking on their devices in public bothered other people, and 50 per cent less inclined to be annoyed by other people using their phones, the study found.

Toronto tech-trend analyst Alan K’necht, a partner at Digital Always Media, said such cultural tendencies found in the Israeli study also hold true in Canada.

“I see it all the time,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard conversations, thinking, ‘You shouldn’t be having that conversation at the grocery store or on the street corner.’ ”

Tech-savvy generation

K’necht said it’s probably not so much that certain types of cellphones transform people’s personalities, but those predisposed to react to phone calls, emails and texts right away are more attracted to smartphones. He added that a higher proportion of young people have smartphones than older people, and that could be a factor in the study’s findings.

“There’s a generation that has grown up very tech savvy and has this sense of immediacy and response, and the only way to do that is to respond immediately — take the call in meetings, respond to texts and tweets and emails on the fly.”

Another of the study’s authors, Tali Hatuka from Tel Aviv University’s geography department, suggested that public spaces be re-designed in such a way that there are designated areas for phone usage, and other areas where it’s not allowed.

K’necht said it might be worthwhile to have more phone booths in public spaces, such as restaurants, where people bring their own phones.

“If the venue wants to provide the old-fashioned phone booth where you can go and sit down in a little cubbyhole and chat, there might be a marketing opportunity,” he said.
…

To continue reading this article, click here.
Via Postmedia News
Photo by FaceMePLS

New Minimally Invasive System For Spinal Correction

Natassia Gerrard, NoCamels — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:52:15 +0000

For reasons not completely understood in the medical world, some children over the age of ten suffer from a side curvature of their spine, known as Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS). According to Scoliosis & Spine Associates, three to five percent of adolescents have some form of scoliosis.

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.

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.”

Israelis Launch Striking Instagram Campaign Against Violence

NoCamels Team — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:15:32 +0000

Over the last few days, Israel has hit the headlines around the world due to the political bombshell that saw two rival political opponents join forces to form a government. But for some Israelis, the past week has had a completely different focus. Violence.

Following several violent and murderous events that spurred public shock and fear, there were some who felt Israelis needed to pause and think about how society can affect change. Using the popular photo sharing network Instagram, now owned by Facebook, one Israeli launched a striking photographic campaign called “Stop the Violence in Israel.” The campaign has seen hundreds around Israel post images worthy of art shows, all with the color red.

See some of the most impressive photos in our gallery:

The initiative came from Ori Taub (@ok2088 on Instagram) a popular user. He tells NoCamels what brought him to launch the campaign: “After the previous weekend, during which there were so many violent incidents, I felt like I can’t just go on with my regular routine as if nothing happened. I wanted to protest.” According to Taub, “my goal was to raise awareness and make people stop for a moment to understand what’s going on here. In a way, I wanted to shock.”

Taub uploaded a photo to Instagram, in which he announced he is going to publish an image against violence on the following day. “Instagram is my emotional arena. I usually try to express my feelings with each picture I upload, and it was very clear to me that I want to express how I feel about the latest violent events. I realized this could be important for other people as well.”

Taub immediately received responses from his followers, who decided to help the initiative go viral. Around 20 other Instagram users used the photo Taub published to promote the campaign and to reach as many participants as possible. From that point, the word started to spread from user to user.

The head campaigners called for any user to upload a image that has some element of the color red in it – or one that puts the focus on a red object – using the hash-tag #stoptheviolenceinisrael. The next day, at the agreed upon hour 21:30, around 400 people joined Taub’s outcry.

“I have to admit that each participant took the project to a different artistic direction,” says Taub. He adds: “The outcome was very moving.”

To view all images from this campaign, click here.

Photo by Yaron Kind

Face.com Releases KLIK 1.0: Mobile Face Recognition Software

Merav Turel, NoCamels — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:26:30 +0000

Face.com, the leader in online face recognition technology, yesterday released the production version of their iPhone camera app, KLIK 1.0. KLIK uses real-time mobile face recognition to automatically detect faces, and even identify friends in photos allowing users to easily tag and share photos of their friends.

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.