Can Israel's "G.HO.ST" Bring Coexistance Between Jews And Palestinians?

(Image: Screen shot of virtual G.ho.st OS)

When it comes to computer operating systems (or OS for short), Microsoft Windows is king. Despite the fact that it dominates the desktop space, Windows (as well as many of its user friendly OS competitors) are often expensive, making them legally unaffordable for half of the planet.

Worse, accessing ones data while away from the office could be a hassle (especially if your computer is powered off due to human error or a power outage).

A fairly young Israeli startup called G.HO.ST hopes to resolve this issue by providing a free "virtual computer" for all of its users, which is accessible where ever there is an internet connection. But what makes this company unique is the fact that they are hiring Palestinians coders and teaming them up with Israeli marketers.

(Israel 21^st Century) Zvi Schreiber's G.ho.st (the Global Hosted Operating System, pronounced "ghost") provides users with a virtual operating system, where they can store files, write and save documents, surf the Web, and even send instant messages to their friends. And he does it with a staff made up of residents of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority - who have to meet and collaborate virtually, through video chats and on-line conferences.

But all that virtual-ness is having a real impact on the lives of people in Israel and the PA, who for perhaps the first time are able to collaborate on high-tech projects, just like people in "normal" places, such as Silicon Valley.

In fact, the 30-strong staff at the Ramallah offices of G.ho.st, even have stock options in the company. "I'm not aware of any other company in the PA that gives out options to its employees," Schreiber tells ISRAEL21c. 

While Israel's G.ho.st may not appeal to the western corporate world, power users or super geeks, it may find enormous appeal for users in third world countries who may not be able to afford a personal computer and must access the web via internet cafes.


Either way, this is a good initiative by G.ho.st, and hopefully more companies will follow.


Update: Edited last text, made sure image was uploaded. Blogger's image uploader is having problems, inserted video instead.

Update 2: Video lacked audio (this is just not my day!). Inserted image since it is functioning again.


Update (7/8): Anton has informed me that the G.HO.ST team has open sourced its light weight client for mobile phones.

Non-Geeks Rejoice! Israel's Wix Now Open To The Public

Wix.com, a company whose product allows users lacking "code moneky skills" to build flash webpages (and widgets) is now open to the public!

(TechCrunch) Wix, the browser-based designer that lets users create Flash-based widgets and full-scale webpages, has launched in public beta. The site specializes in creating colorful Flash pages without requiring any coding[.] [...]

One of the common concerns about Flash websites is that they don’t play nice with search engines, leading to lower page traffic. Wix says it can get around this by generating an XML map for each of their sites that is SEO friendly. Since the launch of its private beta, the company says that they’ve seen a surprisingly high number of users using the designer to create full-fledged sites rather than basic widgets, which makes this search optimization especially important.

While many people are using Wix to create widgets for their webpages (mostly on MySpace), one professional company called IDU Biometrics (previously reviewed over here) is using Wix to spice up their webpage to make it more attractive towards investors.

 

Wix seems to be thrilled with the feedback they have received thus far, although what is really impressive is the way the site allows users to easily create a flash website from scratch.

Israel's Walla! Makes Gains Against Google

After being dethroned as the number one site in Israel, it looks as if Walla! may be making a comeback against its chief rival, Google.

(Globes Online) Google Israel stayed the top website in May, with a weekly exposure rate of 88.7%. Walla! is in second place, at 69.6%, and ynet is in third, at 60.5%. Walla! has widened its gap over ynet and narrowed its gap with Google Israel. Nana10 took over fourth place from YouTube, with a weekly exposure rate of 33.6%. MSN Israel continues to lose ground, slipping to seventh place with a weekly exposure rate of 25.3%. NRG rose to sixth place with 25.9%.

This is good news for Walla!, which has previously aligned itself with Yahoo!, not to mention launching its own advertising network to compete against Google's AdSense/Adwords.

Whether or not we are seeing a trend here has yet to be seen (as Google has decreased before), although its good to see Israeli grown companies taking on the internet Goliath (something Microsoft may want to take note of).

Dating 4 Disabled (Designed By Israel)

Whether it be MySpace, Facebook, Orkut or YouTube, social networks are on the rise globally.

Although newcomers entering the scene would probably be unable to generate revenue marketing their site to everyone, they may be able to grab their "slice of the pie" by creating a site for a specific group of people.

While some companies focus on developing sites based on culture or race, one site--developed by Israelis--created a site to help the disabled find friends and ultimately a lover.

(Israel 21^st Century) nterdate's founders, Yuval Katz and Daniel Brunicki, decided to focus on the disabled community out of both entrepreneurial and social concerns. "D4D was born out of our understanding that, although they surf a great deal on the Internet, the disabled population the world over was under-attended," Brunicki explains to ISRAEL21c.

"On the other hand, we had advanced Internet capabilities. So we decided to do a good deed. We view the site as a community service, and beyond that, there's also a business opportunity; there are 30 million disabled persons in the US alone. Our business model is ad-based - the site is free and we don't intend to ever charge payment - but we do intend to attract ads that are relevant to the community: services, exhibitions, etc., with a special emphasis on the US market," he adds. [...]

"I get very close to people. I have a woman from California who's an amputee. She met someone a month and a half ago on the site. Now she just met him in person and she called me. She had a wonderful time. Another woman wrote to tell me she just went to Sweden to meet her guy. Who knows what will happen, but it's exciting!"

Even though the site does not boast the raw numbers of the bigger social networks, Dating 4 Disabled seems to be helping many of its members find true love, positive news one does not here very frequently from most social networks.

Note: It will be interesting to see how much this site changes in five years, not to mention if they will launch similar sites based upon users locations.

Video Highlights Of Israeli Tech (And Health)

Update (7/3): Listen to this post, courtesy of Bnarrator!

It looks as if Israel 21^st Century has created a video highlighting some of Israel's top start ups emerging out of the country--with some of them having the potential to revolutionize our planet (at least within their respective fields).







Companies featured are:

• Oramed (which could bring about oral insulin)
• iMedix (a social network making it easier to find/share health information)
• Millenium Solar (inexpensive efficient solar technology--enough said!)
• Argo-Housing (which could help make houses greener)
• Mobileye (using digital technology to improve road safety)
• ICS Motors (fuel efficient greener motors--that may be cheaper than current models)
• Nanomaterials (producing strong material at the molecular level)
• C-True Imaging (uses your face as a secure login)

More companies can be seen over here.

Hebrew Name For My Facebook (80,000 Installations And Growing)

While there are many cool Facebook applications to checkout (such as Wipeer), one that may appeal to many Israeli's (and those aspiring to learn Hebrew) is Jacob Richman's My Hebrew Name, which recently surpassed 80,000 installations.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find my Hebrew name (which is דארנל if you sound it out phonetically), although hopefully I'll be able to "add it to the list" in a future version, despite its English origin (hint, hint).

JDate Named As Honoree For Webby Awards

(Hat Tip: Haaretz.com)

JDate, a site dedicated towards helping Jewish singles find their perfect match has been selected as an honoree for the Webby Awards, which is basically like the Oscars for internet sites.

(JDate Press Release) JDate, the leading online community for Jewish singles, has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Social Networking category in the 12th Annual Webby Awards, the leading International award honoring excellence on the Internet. Of the more than 10,000 entries submitted from 60 countries and all 50 states, JDate was among the less than 15 percent recognized as an Official Honoree, a distinction that acknowledges work exhibiting remarkable achievement.

"The Webby Awards honors the outstanding work that is setting the standards for the Internet," said David-Michel Davies, executive director of The Webby Awards. "JDate’s Official Honoree selection is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators."

Congrats to the team over at JDate, as well as to the many couples who have found true love through the site.

Note: The rest of the honoree's can be seen over here.

Israel Tech: Find Your Facebook Friends, Offline?

One of the greatest things about social networks like Facebook is that it gives users the ability to connect with friends (both old and new), not to mention easily communicate with each other without maxing out the phone bill.

Unfortunately for many people (if not most), social networks only work if one is connected to the world wide web. WiPeer (previously reviewed on IsraGood) may have developed a "solution" around this by allowing users to connect with friends over short distances, even when both of you are offline.

(American Technion Society) Imagine you're stuck in an airport during a delay, and (gasp!) you don't have an Internet connection. Thanks to a new Facebook application developed at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, you'd still be able to use your laptop computer - sans Internet - to detect Facebook friends (and friends of those friends) who have also installed the application, making it possible to network, chat, share files and directories, play collaborative games, or actually meet face-to-face.

According to scientists at the Technion, there are two components to the application, dubbed "Peersonalizer": a Facebook application and a module inside the free, downloadable WiPeer software (http://www.wipeer.com) developed by lead researcher Professor Roy Friedman's team last year. [WiPeer makes direct wireless (WiFi) communication between computers possible - without intermediary devices (such as Internet routers) - at distances of up to 900 ft.].

The article goes on to elaborate that this technology could potentially be applied to the iPhone, which would delight Apple fans everywhere (note: this author included).

Users can check out the Facebook Application, although hopefully these guys (as well as gals if any work there) will consider creating a version for Google's OpenSocial, in order to tap into the other social networks around the world.

Only In Israel: Google And Microsoft Are Friends?

While the two internet giants battle it out worldwide, both have been taking an increasing interest in the Jewish state, with both Google and Microsoft buying out various startups, respectively.

But despite the heated competition between the two, it looks like geeks from both sides of the aisle can come together and actually accomplish some good for the world--for free.

(Globes Online) Google Israel has started a new tradition, with the opening last week of the company's first engineers' conference. The meeting, which was initiated by engineers at the Google R&D center in Haifa, is a professional conference designed to enable engineers from similar fields to meet one another and share their knowledge. The event included lectures by Google Israel staff on technology-related issues and Google applications.

The event, which coincided with Microsoft Israel's Tech Ed conference, was attended by around 100 engineers and high-tech executives from various companies, including Microsoft Israel itself.

Hopefully both Microsoft and Google will consider doing more events like these in the future (in both Israel as well as overseas) as both companies have a lot to offer the world--especially if Microsoft purchases Yahoo! (something I am not too thrilled with).

Should Skype Be Worried About Israel's Spikko?

It looks like another company may be positioning itself to dethrone the VoIP King, Skype. But unlike Jajah which hooks into one's email account, Spikko seeks to challenge eBay's chat program by presenting an alternative "business model."

(Globes Online) Spikko Ltd., a start-up that has been operating in stealth mode for three years, claims that it has found a way to offer free telephone calls and make a profit at it. The company's technology offers VoIP telephony services gratis for members. The only way to join the service is by invitation from an existing member. The service currently has 50,000 members. [...]

Spikko CEO Shay Gilboa: "Each user receives a local telephone number and an initial grant. For each incoming call, he receives credit to make an outgoing call by either landline or mobile. Each call goes to a computer, and will soon also go to a mobile telephone. The calls go to the devices' data channel, which means that the average payment (for airtime) will be no more than NIS 0.05 per minute, which will be collected by the cellular operator."

It will be interesting to see Skype reaction to this (that is if they actually consider them to be a serious threat). Currently Skype offers users various rates that range from two cents a minute to a quarter (and even more!).

Despite the high rates to other countries, Skype still seems to be cheaper in Israel than Spikko, although if the latter can keep its prices at a nickel a minuete (regardless of which country you call) we may see this author switch over...at least when calling friends in India. ;-)

Mytopia: Israeli Innovation For Social Network Gamers

One neat phenomenom about social networks is that they give users the ability to communicate and "poke" friends, even from long distances. While many of them have games on them, very few allow users from once social network to play the same game against a player from another.

Fortunately it seems as if an Israeli company called Mytopia hopes to change all of that--real soon.

(TechCrunch) There is a new casual gaming network in town that's got some serious cross-platform chops. Don't be fooled by the cutesy graphics. Today, Mytopia is simultaneously launching across Facebook, Bebo, MySpace (currently pending approval) and its own Website with eight games (Chess, Backgammon, Sudoku, Dominoes, Bingo, Spades, Hearts, Video Poker). On Monday, it will release the same games across the major Web and desktop widgets: iGoogle Gadgets, Apple Dashboard Widgets, Yahoo Widgets and Windows Vista Toolbar Widgets.

Here's the thing: the games work across all of these platforms. You can be on Facebook playing cards with one friend on MySpace and another on Bebo. And you can control what people on each network see about you. For instance, you can present your real profile to your friends on Facebook, and a different Mytopia avatar to everyone else. These are the sort of apps that could one day break Facebook's, or any social network's, hold on its members.

As the popularity of this game spreads, it will not be all that surprising to see Mytopia spread to other social networks with a more international flavor (such as Hi5 and orkut).

Note: Hopefully Mytopia can find a way to add this program to the iPhone, as many users (this author included) would be dying to play chess against friends on Facebook during the lunch break).

Since When Did The Shin Bet Start Blogging?

(Hat tip: Blog Herald)

It looks as if one of Israel's security agencies has started not one blog, but four!

Despite their secrecy, Israel's Shin Bet, (which is like the FBI in America) is starting to open up on cyberspace.

(Guardian.co.uk) Shin Bet agents are routinely involved in surveillance, interrogation and armed operations against Palestinian militants inside Israel and the occupied territories. The bloggers have technical office jobs.

Still, they guard their anonymity, using only silhouetted portraits of themselves.

One, called H, says she is a quality assurance engineer and took the job as it allows her to spend more time with her family. "There are things that I can't even tell my husband in detail," she writes. "At a family event someone asked where I work and had trouble taking a hint."

Unfortunately, unless Hebrew is your mother tongue (or secondary, something I am attempting to achieve), the site may be of little value to you.

The authors blog anonymously under Hebrew letters, and you can visit the "agent" blogs by clicking the links below.

• Agent Nun


• Agent Alef


• Agent Het (note: she's the only girl)


• Agent Yod

While no one expects the Mossad to start blogging, it is good to see the Israeli government joining the "rest of us" in cyberspace. Hopefully more departments will open up in the future, as it is a great way to promote themselves to the public (not to mention over seas).

Prime Minister Olmert Has A Blog?

In an age where everyone and their little sister is dying to have their thoughts expressed online, it looks as if the Prime Minister of Israel has decided to follow the trend and start a blog himself.

Unfortunately it seems as if he has delegated the task to other to write on it.

(Israel National News) The travel blog is being written by officials in the Prime Minister's office and not by himself. "The goal is to allow those surfing the website to learn directly about the course of the visit and to obtain regular updates about its developments," the current blog states. "This is another tool to increase the transparency of the Prime Minister's activities in general and to reveal some of his wide-ranging diplomatic work.... We would be pleased to receive comments about the blog and its contents."

Readers can visit the blog over at PMO.gov.il/PMOEng and can even subscribe to his RSS feed, although it looks as if the Prime Minister has not enabled comments on his weblog.

His latest entry details his recent trip towards Japan, which will hopefully help bring in some extra revenue towards the Jewish state.

Microsoft Gobbles Up Israel's YaData

(Hat Tip: TechCrunch and VC Cafe)

In its eternal quest to conquer Google, it looks as if Microsoft has assimilated another Israeli company--one with the potential to help the Redmond giant compete against Google's AdSense.

(Globes Online) YaData's technology will enable Microsoft to provide its advertisers with richer targeting capabilities so they can connect with their audience in more efficient and engaging ways, at the same time providing its customers more relevant and focused ads. The YaData team will join Microsoft's R&D center in Herzliya and YaData’s solutions will be deployed through Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions group. [...]

YaData CEO Amir Peleg said, "YaData fully believes in the potential of behavioral targeting to enhance the value of online advertising for publishers, advertisers and users. Microsoft has the resources to unlock the potential in YaData's technology and create a truly innovative online advertising solution. We're excited to see what the future holds."

Microsoft has previously bought out another startup, not to mention the fact that they have been scouting out Israeli's with super geek skills for quite some time now.

It will be interesting to see whether or not YaData, which means "You Knew" in Hebrew (hat tip: Eze Vidra of VC Cafe) will be able to help Microsoft defeat the search engine king in the near future.

Israel's Fraud Sciences To Make eBay Safer?

Often seen as the prime spot to shop online, eBay is one of the largest tech companies online (at least as far as shopping goes).

Unfortunately in this day and age, there are plenty of scam artists out there who are attempting to rip off online consumers with fake deals and transactions, which can be quite a headache for companies like eBay.

In order to curb this problem, eBay (through PayPal) has purchased Fraud Sciences, a company based in the holy land.

(TechCrunch) Israel and Palo Alto based Fraud Sciences offers automated anti-fraud systems including Spotlight VFX and Spotlight T2T, merchant solutions the provide transaction verification with fraud prevention. In an October 2007 profile, Israelplug said that Fraud Sciences products "help online retailers verify the identity of buyers and accept orders that they would have seen as suspicious in the past - thus enabling them to increase their sales."

eBay said the acquisition will assist them in significantly improving trust and safety across its sites in 2008. Fraud Sciences' risk tools will be integrated with Paypal fraud management system.

This will come as good news to places like Ghana and Nigeria, which are known for being rampant with consumer fraud online.

eBay's purchase will help legitimate buyers from "troubled nations" buy the goods they need, instead of being blacklisted entirely by merchants because of "bad history" when it comes to online transactions.

Finally! Jewish Google Founder To Visit Israel

It looks as if Google's Jewish founder Sergey Bin will finally be seeing the holy land for himself (if he has not already).

(Ynet News) Google co-founder Sergey Brin has accepted President Shimon Peres' invitation to attend a conference he is organizing and is due to arrive in Israel this coming May, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Sunday.

Hundreds of statesmen, businessmen, artists and physicians from all over the world are expected to take part in the conference, which will focus on "how Israel and the Jewish mind can contribute in the medical, scientific and ecological fields".

Sergey Bin is a multi-billionaire who is famous for founding the company Google (which is dominating the holy land as the number one site). He is planning on taking his family on a site seeing tour of Israel, although I would not be surprised if he decided to stop by and say hello shalom to the Tel Aviv office.

Google is already one of the most successful Internet companies of all time, and to the dismay of its rivals is already the number one site in the holy land.

While Sergey Bin will probably not consider making Aliyah to the holy land, perhaps he could show some commitment to the Jewish state by purchasing a house...or two...dozen...while he visits. ;-)

Blogger.com Embraces Hebrew (Plus Others)

(Image Credit: Google/Blogger)

It looks as if the Google boys and girls at Blogger have finally embraced Hebrew--or more correctly making the site friendly towards Hebrew, whether it be template layout or coding.

But instead of just making it an Israeli thing, they have also included the languages of some of Israel's neighbors as well.

(Blogger Buzz) We are excited to announce that Blogger is now available in three more languages: Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian! [...]

Besides localizing the Blogger interface into these three languages, we have right-to-left templates and have added new toolbar buttons for bi-directional text editing in the post editor.

The effort was worth it, however, and we’re tremendously happy to be a part of the growing Arabic-, Hebrew-, and Persian-language blogging communities.

This should help make it easier for Israeli bloggers (not to mention Arabian and our Persian friends) to post their thoughts online, as well as show off their template designs via Blogger (aka blog*spot).

Yahoo! To Purchase Israel's FoxyTunes

After previously forming alliances with Walla!, it looks as if Yahoo! is deciding whether or not to buy out FoxyTunes, a company based in Israel.

(TechCrunch) Rumors popped up here in Silicon Valley that Yahoo is in negotiations to buy Israel-based FoxyTunes.

The Foxytunes core service is a Firefox plugin that allows users to control their favorite media players from the browser. It has a small but loyal following, who also use their tangential services (an email/blog signature tool and FoxyTunes Planet, a site that aggregates music information).

Since Yahoo! already is investing its resources into music, FoxyTunes makes a perfect purchase for the media/tech giant. While Google still holds the reigns as the champ in Israel, hopefully Yahoo!'s entrance can shake things up a bit in an already competitive market place.

Israel's Trip Touch To Make Traveling Easier?

For those of you who frequently travel the world, you may want to consider adding another site to your list.

TripTouch, a company based in Israel seeks to make it easier to travel to a foreign city (or discovering more of your own) by helping users plan out their trips, as well as discover friends along the way.

(TripTouch) TripTouch is a website for independent travelers who want the best from their trip. Everything at TripTouch is centered around your location and your personalized travel needs. TripTouch has local information, services and community all in one easy to use website.

TripTouch currently cover more than 3,000 destinations world-wide.

The site comes off as a cross between a "local version" of Lonely Planet, and the Hospitality Club. You can use the site to find inexpensive hotels, as well as where to locate a tasty snack.

TripTouch also allows users to find new friends throughout the site from different countries, which can be helpful if you want some local advice about the area you are visiting.



Note: Names marked out to protect privacy.

The only drawback about TripTouch is the basic layout (color wise), which can leave one slightly depressed. Aside from that, the site has some real potential, especially if it can leverage the local knowledge of its users, as well as attract new ones (perhaps through a Facebook App).

While the site is still in beta, users can sign up for the service for free and explore the site for themselves.

Can Yahoo! And Walla! Challenge Google In Israel?

It looks like one of Google's biggest competitors will be entering Israeli cyberspace to challenge the search engine king on the holy land home front.

But instead of challenging Google on its own strength, Yahoo! has decided to partner with Walla! in a bid to take on the digital Goliath.

(Globes Online) Walla! CEO Ilan Yeshua told "Globes", "We signed a long-term agreement with Yahoo! that enables us to use its innovative search technology. The agreement follows the launch of our search engine at the beginning of the year. The business has caught on, and succeeded, with a great many advertisers already signing up." [...]

When asked if he believed that Walla! could create genuine competition for Google, he replied, "We don’t expect to win half of the search market in Israel, but we expect to become a significant player in Israel, and we'll grab a substantial portion of the market."

While it is good to see Yahoo! wisely partnering up with Walla!, what they need to do is seek (and buy out) a few Israeli startups that can challenge the Google giant on search engine kings weaker fronts (like Froogle).

If not, Google will simply buy out companies with potential (like they did last time), leaving their competitors to settle for either the silver or the bronze.