By John Jeffay

The famed ingenuity that earned Israel the moniker “Startup Nation” has spread to the home front during the war triggered by the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, in which Hamas terrorists killed 1,400 people, wounded thousands more and abducted hundreds into Gaza. Volunteers for a new organization have channeled their loss, fear and pain […]

Driverless cars are the future. But for the ordinary motorist, that future is still a way off. The AI that drives autonomous vehicles is clever, but not clever enough. Yet. It struggles with what engineers call “corner cases” – the unexpected and unpredictable set of circumstances that currently call for human, rather than artificial intelligence. […]

Beekeepers have a sixth sense. They listen to the buzz of their hive and instantly know the health of the bees. That’s fine if you have just a handful of hives. But bees are big business and big bee companies typically have thousands or tens of thousands of hives. Farmers rent them as they need […]

Indoor drones developed by an Israeli startup are on security patrol. They’re flying along the corridors of office buildings and they’re keeping an eye on warehouses, factories, data centers and other premises. The AI-powered drones drop from their ceiling-mounted docking stations autonomously, fly their pre-planned route and raise an alert if they spot intruders, doors […]

Countless American soldiers owe their lives to the armored vehicles that protected them from bullets, bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same armor is now being incorporated into the 150,000-strong fleet of new vehicles that is currently replacing the military’s all-purpose Hummers and jeeps. But few of those servicemen and […]

A startup in Israel is launching what it describes as the world’s first completely hands-free underwater “smart scooter.” KikFin has produced a jetpack with fins that straps onto a swimmer’s back and propels them though the water faster than Olympic champion Michael Phelps. It also attaches to surfboards, helping beginners as they learn to catch […]

Meet the kitchen robot that can prepare a chicken Caesar salad, spaghetti Bolognese, teriyaki steak, chicken penne alfredo, all at the same time. And then it does the washing up. The Beastro is an all-Israeli invention that provides the chef in any commercial kitchen with an extra four pairs of hands. It follows their instructions […]

Practical Innovation is an idea factory, a one-off organization based in Israel that comes up with one-off ways for businesses with a sense of adventure to expand their operations. And in a world where the term “game changer” is routinely used to hype even the most modest improvement to a product, Practical Innovation is, quite […]

If a water pipe bursts at home, you know what to do. Find the shut-off valve and limit the damage. But if the same thing happens at a huge industrial complex, it’s quite possible that nobody actually knows how to switch off the supply. Visit any factory producing chemicals, medicines, cleaning products or toiletries, for […]

Think whisky, think Scotland. It has an abundance of vital ingredients  – water, barley and yeast. It has the perfect climate – cold, wet and miserable. And it has centuries of expertise. Israel has none of the above. But what it lacks in tradition, it makes up for in innovation. The Startup Nation is home […]

You don’t read too much in the news about breakthroughs in the world of food canning. That’s because there aren’t many. Food was first preserved in cans in 1810, the first can opener was invented 50 years later (absolutely true!) and easy-open cans (with a built-in ring pull) arrived in the 1960s. And that’s about […]

I’m working with a laptop that has no screen. That’s not strictly true, because I can actually see a dozen or more of them, using a dedicated pair of glasses. But there is no physical screen. Spacetop, billed as the world’s first augmented reality laptop, looks like the keyboard to a standard 13-inch laptop, minus […]

Are there no limits to the ingenuity of AI? It can now create a high-definition 3D image almost instantly, from a single sentence of simple instructions. “A modern bedside lamp with an egg-shaped marble body and a cone-shaped fabric shade,” for example. Press the “generate” button and 35 seconds later you have your lamp. Want […]

Tidy mind, tidy desktop. Not me. I have dozens of tabs open on my computer. I have no idea if the information I want is on a WhatsApp message, one of several email accounts, a LinkedIn post, a voice note, or on a scrap of paper in my pant pocket. So I was intrigued to […]

Turning fresh air into water seemed like nothing short of a miracle back in 2012. That was when Israeli startup Watergen revealed its first atmospheric water generator to the world. Watergen cools air, much like an air conditioner, until it condenses and becomes water. But technology moves on apace. And H2oll another Israeli startup, says […]