News Briefs

Israeli entrepreneur Dov Moran, who was behind the cellular startup Modu and recently introduced the smartype keyboard, has unveiled his latest startup entitled LoopJoy. The company offers a free platform for app developers, which enables them to sell merchandise from within the app.

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Israeli broadband solutions and wireless company Alvarion has announced that it has implemented its technology in approximately 300 municipalities across 24 different states in Brazil. The company says that the cities are now considered “smart cities” that offer indoor and outdoor Internet access, classroom connectivity and e-learning, intelligent traffic and transportation control, video surveillance for public safety, online services for citizens and voice, video and data connectivity for government offices, hospitals and other service providers.

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Contacts+, an Israeli company which developed a tool that arranges contacts from different websites and mobile devices into one organized list, has announced a successful seed-stage funding round of $1.1 million. The service is currently only available for Android users, but the company is working on an iOS product as well.

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The European Travellers’ Association has chosen the hiking and biking “ring trail” surrounding the city of Be’er Sheva as the 3rd place winner of its annual environmental competition. The trail is 42 kilometers long and is the only such trail in Israel that surrounds an entire city.

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Israeli-founded medical imaging company Rhythmia has been sold to American medical corporation Boston Scientific. The Israeli company, which develops next generation mapping and navigation solutions used in cardiac catheter ablations and other electrophysiology procedures, was sold for $265 million.

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Flayvr, an app designed to help users sort through media recorded by their smartphone, has announced that it has raised $450K in a pre-seed financing round. The company uses an algorithm that automatically sorts media, according to date and place taken. The company has also recently launched their app on the Apple App Store.

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Mindojo, an Israeli company which offers online GMAT virtual private tutors, has announced that it has raised $2.2 million from US investor Barry Fingerhut. The company is active in 80 countries and offers its services for a fee of $750 a year.

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Israeli company Conduit, which offers cloud-based audience analysis tools, is ranked 25th on financial magazine Business Insider’s “Digital 100” list, which ranks technology companies according to their market worth. According to Business Insider, the company is worth over $1 billion. Israeli company Wix also made the list, and was ranked 65th.

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The International Astronautical Federation has announced that Israel has won the bid to host the 2015 International Astronautical Congress. Israel was chosen to host the congress, with over 50 percent of the votes, and was chosen over Mexico, Turkey and Thailand. The congress, to be held in Jerusalem, is expected to draw some 3,000 visitiors.

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Upon the release of Apple’s Passbook feature on iOS 6, Israeli startup BillGuard has integrated its acclaimed bill-tracking software into the feature. CEO Yaron Samid told technology blog TechCrunch that the company’s software has saved users roughly $1 million in the past 18 months.

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The 24 hour competition, or “Hackathon,” known as AngelHack will take place in Hertzlia, Israel, next month. Contestants will have 24 hours to write code for a program they believe will greatly improve an area of daily life. Alongside prizes worth $50k for the winners, the top 3 teams will be highly considered to be included in Microsoft’s Azure Accelerator program. AngelHack is partnered by Facebook, Google, Microsoft and oter prominent software companies.

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Gaming celebrity and former Apple exec Trip Hawkins, who most memorably founded gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA), will be the key note speaker in Israeli magazine Calcalist’s “2013 Mobile Conference” which will take place October 15th in Tel Aviv. Hawkins is considered a prominent pioneer in the field of computer and console games.

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Out of 100 companies listed on Global Cleantech 2012 list, 6 are Israelis. Israel is also ranked 2nd in the category of innovation and 1st in companies per Trillion $ GDP. This is a significant improvement from last year’s list, which had 4 Israeli companies listed. 64 of the companies listed are based in the US.

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One of the laureates for the MacArthur Fellows Program, which awards $500k to “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction” is Israeli-American mathematician Prof. Maria Chudnovsky. Chudnovsky, who studied in the Technion Institute, is currently an associate professor in the department of industrial engineering and operations research at Columbia University in New York.

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Denmark-based wireless communication company Jabra has released a new Bluetooth headset, SUPREMETM UC, which relies on Israeli technology for its voice-recognition features. The technology, developed by Rubidium, gives the user “a flawless hands free experience”, according to the company.

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