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TIME cites Israeli for creating ‘new art form’

We wrote about him back in March and now the rest of the world is catching on. One of the top 50 inventions of 2009, according to TIME magazine is the music video montage Web site created by Israeli musicians Ophir Kutiel, who goes by the name Kutiman.

Kutiel’s site, thru-you.com, has atttracted more than seven million viewers with its striking remixes of video clips by amateur musicians from YouTube. TIME called the work “video jams of amazing funkiness, in the process creating an all-new art form.”

Kutiman takes YouTube footage of people giving gear demos and lessons on how to play certain riffs and combines them into incredibily cohesive and soulful songs. Hailed as the “psychedelic funk architect” Kutiman brings UGC (Users Generated Content) to the next level.

According to his record company NMC, Kutiman sat in his bedroom studio and watched and sorted thousands of music videos uploaded to YouTube by mostly anonymous users. Kutiman chose around a 100 of these videos – made by users from all around the world, featuring both musical instruments, vocals, toys and other surprising artifacts, and fused them together into Thru You. Using only materials found on YouTube, not playing a single note himself, Kutiman’s Thru You is a 21st century version of Found Art.

On an inventions list consisting of primarily gadgets and technology, Kutiman’s Thru You is certainly striking an appealing chord.

A free offer that’s too free

It happens every year at this time like clockwork. I get a call from a “private number” according to my phone’s caller ID. I answer, expecting to hear a plea for funding from a new charity. Instead, it’s the Haaretz newspaper offering me a free gift: a two-week trial of the English print edition of the paper along with the International Herald Tribune.

How can I resist? Never mind the fact that virtually the entire daily and weekend Haaretz is online and I can (and do) read it regularly, and that by having the paper delivered to my door I am contributing to who knows how many extra trees that must necessarily be felled because of my greedy acceptance.

Still, growing up in a newspaper family (my father worked as a reporter for The San Francisco Examiner for 35 years), there is nothing like the feel of fresh newsprint at the breakfast table (and later in slightly less fragrant parts of the house).

We subscribed to both the morning and afternoon papers, which turned out to be somewhat of a problem as I felt compelled to clip out any and all articles of interest. Several years ago, when my parents moved to a retirement community, leaving the home in which I grew up, I had to wade through the 31 boxes of “stuff” I’d stored in my old bedroom. A majority of those boxes were filled with my obsessive newspaper snips.

My kids will never have the same “opportunity” to take scissors to paper. Within a few years, publications will be online only (you think it will take longer…bookmark this article and read it again in 2015). As a result, anything even vaguely resembling the current newspaper form factor will be consumed on a portable reading device like the large screen Amazon Kindle or the upcoming “Que” from Plastic Logic. My 31 boxes of data could fit on a generously sized disk-on-key.

When my two-week free trial of Haaretz ended this week, I waited for the inevitable follow up call. But it never came. In fact, the nice salesman who made the offer in the first place didn’t call last year, or the year before either.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the point of freebies to hook the recipient into purchasing something they really don’t’t need? Perhaps Haaretz isn’t bound by the natural laws of marketing. Is it possible that the newspaper was truly giving me a thoughtful gift out of the goodness of its icy corporate heart?

You want to know the most ironic part of the story? After two weeks, I was feeling like I might actually enjoy a daily subscription! Oh well, back to the Internet where the bytes still roam free.

ISRAEL21c Start-up Nation giveaway

Here in Israel, it’s no secret that the country is an economic success story. It’s been a topic of conversation for a couple of decades now. During the 1990s, and 2000s, the country’s high-tech industry blossomed, pulling virtually everything with it.

With so much to do, and so little time to do it in, no one bothered to chronicle this success story. They were too busy keeping up with the pace of development.

Now Saul Singer and Dan Senor have taken time out to explore the phenomenon in their new book Start-up Nation, the Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle . It makes a fascinating read for anyone who has ever wondered what exactly it is that makes Israel one of the world’s leaders in innovation.

The army, immigration, and a healthy dose of chutzpah have all come together in a heady mix to transform Israel – a tiny little nation of 7.1 million people surrounded by enemies and with no natural resources (not even water) – into an economic and technological powerhouse that has more companies on NASDAQ than those of Europe, Korea, Japan, Singapore, India and China combined.

ISRAEL21c is now running a competition, offering six copies of Start-Up Nation to readers. Click on our Start-up Nation competition page to find out more.

Israel to get its own MTV

How do you say ‘I want my MTV’ in Hebrew?

While cable viewers here have had easy access to MTV Europe and VH1 Europe for many years, the days of a full-fledged MTV Israel are imminent, according to MTV Europe’s Managing Director and Executive Vice President Bhavneet Singh, who was in recently town for talks with the company’s partner in Israel – Ananey Communications, one of the country’s leading cable channel developers.

Singh is a big fan of Israel and it’s tech ingenuity and sophistication. In fact, two years ago, Israel became the first country to launch an online MTV – MTV.co.il - without having a TV channel to go along with it.

“Technology-wise, you guys are like the South Korea of this part of the world, in terms of your broadband penetration and your consumption of media,” Singh told me in a meeting in Tel Aviv. “You’re known as a people and culture of being ahead of the game – whether it’s ICQ or any number of new tech companies coming out of here. That was one of the reasons giving us the confidence to say, hey, an online introduction to MTV is a nice way to do this.”

The MTV Israel free-on-demand web site features many of the staples located on the MTV Europe TV channel that cable subscribers can view, like The Hills, Cribs and Pimp My Ride, as well as local programming like celebrity news show Mehadura.

According to Ananey’s Udi Meron, an Israeli TV pioneer who founded the Kids Channel back in the early days of cable TV, the popularity of the site has convinced Singh and his colleagues that the time is ripe for a Sabra MTV music channel to go along with the more than 50 distinct MTV channels around the world.

“Everyone finds their own balance – we want to add of course the element of Israeli music and Israeli lifestyle. For Israel it’s very important, internally and externally, because one of the things we want to do is make MTV Israel a window to the world, and to the MTV network,” said Meron.

While Israelis like Becky Griffin, Eden Harel and Jason Danino-Holt have served as MTV Europe VJs, and on November 5th in Berlin, Ninet Tayeb will represent Israel at the MTV television network’s Europe Music Awards, Meron sees a unique opportunity in MTV Israel for the country’s virtues to be exported to youth around the world, through original programming that Singh said was of sufficient quality to be dubbed and sent to MTV affiliates everywhere.

While neither Singh or Meron would commit to a target date for the channel’s launch, Singh said that it would “be sooner than later.”

Israel at the center of alternative energy development

No matter what your politics, there was nothing to feel conflicted about in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech at the recent 2009 President’s Conference where he sketched out an inspiring plan to develop a feasible, cost effective alternative to fossil fuels within 10 years.

Israel is not unique of course in recognizing that the world cannot depend on oil forever. It’s clearly a threat to the environment, to the economies of those countries that import oil (that would be most of the world), and more critically global security.

Israel has an even more urgent agenda. We’re a small country and the supply of oil can – and has – been used against us. When I was growing up in the U.S., I remember the post-Yom Kippur War oil crisis. At the time, I was not really aware of what was happening on the political stage, but the lines around the block at gas stations made me want to blame someone. For many, the punching bag then (as too often now) was Israel.

Fortunately, Israel is perhaps ideally situated to develop an alternative energy solution. We are already at the cusp of innovation in many related areas – from agro-tech, nanotechnology and solar energy to battery technologies and renewable energies (take a look at this page from the main Israel21c website for Israeli companies involved in social energy) .

We also have more Nobel Prize winners and more venture capital money per capita than any other country. We’re already in bed with Shai Agassi’s A Better Place initiative to deploy electric cars and charging stations around the country within the next few years.

Netanyahu says he aims to establish “a national commission comprised of scientists, manufacturers, engineers, businesspeople and government officials.”

Can we do it? That’s another story. Rhetoric doesn’t always translate into action. Budgets get slashed. Bureaucrats squabble.

But the stakes are too high here. As Netanyahu put it succinctly: “We have the brains, but we also have the will.”

Israelis love gadgets on Google

Ever wonder what Israelis look for on Google? If you thought it was photos of Bar Refaeli, than you’re only partially right.

According to Google Israel Ltd., Israelis are actually nerds – mostly interested in gadgets. The business site Globes reported Google’s assessment of Israeli behavior on the search engine, which found that we’re particularly interested in the…. global cellular market???

The anticipated arrival of the new iPhone in Israel and the expansion of cellular companies into the music content field with Pelephone’s Musix, Cellcom Israel Ltd. Cellcom Media and Partner Communications Co. Ltd. Orange Time have resulted in a high rate of search for these services, Google Israel media and telecom sector head Nir Korchak told the site.

“Without doubt, the biggest new buzz over the last six months was the much talked-about iPhone. The late launch did not curb the appetite of Israelis for the coveted handset and may even have strengthened it. Searches for it were astronomical and broke all records for handset searches.”

Korchak added, “We can draw conclusions from this about Israeli consumers. He loves gadgets and is quick to take up new technologies, and this trend is expressed in the largest number of searches even before the launch. In other words, the enthusiastic Israeli public sees itself as part of the global village, and does not wait for the local launch to get information about something which is already being sold abroad.”

He said, “The Israeli public uses the search engine at every stage in the purchasing process: from initial interest through searches like ‘critique of Nokia N97 through market surveys, ‘iPhone price comparisons’ and onto the order stage ‘buy mobile phone.’”

According to the study, Israelis also use the search terms ‘loans’ and ‘financing’ alot, but not in ways that characterize an economic crisis – 55% of Israelis looked for a loan to finance a vacation, 25% to renovate their home and only 20% in order to repay debts.

And demonstrating that Israelis aren’t just business minded, there have been two peaks in the last six months for searches for swine flu in both English and Hebrew – the first was after the initial outbreak in Mexico and the second was after the outbreak of the virus in Israel.

Of course, what the survey didn’t indicate was that according my own informal polling, after searching for all of the above topics, 93% of Israeli males also typed in ‘Bar Refaeli photos.’

Israeli vaccine may work against swine flu too

With doctors and nurses around the world now declaring that there’s no way many of them will take the new swine flu vaccine being rushed out this fall because of safety fears, it’s not surprising that interest in Israeli company BiondVax Phamaceuticals is growing fast.

The company is developing a universal flu vaccine that is designed to protect you from every type of flu – whether it’s chicken flu, Hong Kong flu, regular flu, or cat in the hat flu. One shot can last three to five years.

Now the company has announced indications of possible success in a trial on rats against the current H1N1/A flu (swine flu). The company reported that antibodies specific to swine flu were found in blood samples from lab rats injected with the universal flu vaccine.

On rumors of this news alone, the company’s share price on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange rose 18 percent, prompting the exchange to suspend trading.

ISRAEL21c reporter Harvey Stein featured the company in June this year, when fears about the pandemic nature of swine flu were just coming to the fore. You can watch his great video above.

Don’t get too excited though. You won’t be able to sign up for a universal flu vaccine when flu season breaks out in the next few months. There’s still more development ahead.

Other Israelity reports on Swine flu:

It’s flu, but not as we know it

Anatomy of a flu panic

Foto Friday – Israel from on high

Every minute of every day, eyes in the sky are watching and recording earth. The resulting images — only a fraction of which are on view to the public — are often incomprehensible and dull to the untrained eye, but sometimes you come across some that are fascinating. For example, this image from the NASA Visible Earth catalogue of a Saharan dust storm covering our region:

Or the beaches of Tel Aviv, as seen from the International Space Station:

It’s s bit shocking to realize the level of detail that satellite photography can achieve. For example, let’s check out the weather, shall we?, courtesy of EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.

Europe-Africa	Middle East
Thermal IR (showing clouds)
Visible wavelength

More weather information can be found at Israel Weather and more satellite images of Israel can be found at the wonderful Israel Science and Technology Homepage, a great resource.

Israel, as the ninth nation in the world to launch a satellite into orbit (the Ofeq 1 in 1988), has its own storied history of space surveillance — and while many of those stories will remain untold for a long, long time, at least one commercial venture has emerged: SpaceCom, whose Amos satellites provide communications services to a range of TV and radio broadcasters around the world.

The Amos 3 went into orbit last year, and launches are planned for 2010, 2011 and 2012. This image, of the Amos 2 satellite launch in 2003, is testament to the vision and tenacity of its founders — principally Meir Amit, a military hero and former head of Mossad who passed away at the age of 88 and was buried last week. A tribute to Amit can be found here.

Tweeting God

If you can already send a message to God by fax, email or text message, then it only stands to reason that you should now be able to tweet him as well.

A new Israeli web site is offering users a chance to send a prayer or private message by Twitter to the Western Wall.

The service was initiated a couple of weeks ago by Tel Avivian Alon Nir. Users can send a short prayer or wish to God to the site, and every few days they will be printed out on small notes and slipped into the wall’s crevices.

You have to be pretty concise. Tweets run to just 140 characters, which doesn’t give you much room to ask for anything more than the basics.

The site, www.twitter.com/The Kotel, is non-profit and prayers have already been pouring in with requests on subjects ranging from personal issues like health and livelihood, to the release of Gilad Shalit.

Traffic is clearly heavy. The internet is abuzz with the news, and Nir has been caught unprepared for all the interest.

His tweets grow progressively more panicked. From: “WOW i’m all over the internet now……. things happen to fast to updaye (sic)” to, ” I CANT KEEP UP ! SO many media all over the world!”, and “Computer is crashing again! wow! thanks all! must restart the computer” to a final note warning that processing time is slower than usual as things are so hectic.

Call me old fashioned, but it seems to me that if you’re the kind of person who really wants to speak to God, dashing off a 140 character tweet by electronic media just doesn’t really do it. And what a sadness to miss out on that unique experience of slipping a tiny piece of paper with your hopes and wishes into the warm gold stone of the Kotel.

Just another ghost in the Wall

The security barrier is on lots of peoples’ minds lately – first it was the Cellcom ad, and now it’s a new Internet startup G.ho.st, launched last night by an Israeli entrepreneur and Palestinian software developers.

For this startup, the product may be less important than the people who created it.
According to the Associated Press, Israeli entrepreneur Zvi Schreiber partnered with Palestinian engineers to launch G.ho.st Virtual Computer, a Web-based operating system based in Jerusalem and Ramallah that recreates the attributes of a personal computer’s desktop from any computer with an Internet connection.

“Our idea is simply to use the Internet to give people a computing environment that is not just stored on a physical device, but is available on a Web page or any mobile device and gives you everything you need: your desktop, your files, your programs,” G.ho.st CEO Schreiber said at the launch, in the West Bank town of Beit Jalla, close to Jerusalem’s southern edge.

The company started more than three years ago after Schreiber sold his second high tech startup. He had never worked with Palestinians and knew very little about the fledgling software industry in the West Bank.

“I wanted to combine my technological interests with my social interests. I always wanted to do something to help resolve the complete mess that we’ve all made of this part of the world,” he said.

According to Schreiber, the company’s name refers not only to the virtual computer’s ability to float through the boundaries of a physical computer, but also to the G.ho.st team’s cross-border collaboration.

There’s a Palestinian staff of nearly 30 workers who confer with their Israeli counterparts mostly by video conference. Many of the engineers living in the West Bank aren’t able to get the permits needed to get into Israel, while Israelis are barred from most Palestinian areas in the West Bank due to security concerns. Schreiber has never been to the company’s Ramallah office.

Tuesday’s launch in Beit Jallah was against the backdrop of the security barrier – an intentional decision.

“Ghosts go through walls and the very first wall that G.ho.st goes through is the … wall and fence that Israel is building in the West Bank between itself and the Palestinians and which physically divides the G.ho.st team into two,” the firm’s Web site says.

AP reported that International Mideast peace envoy Tony Blair attended the launch, commended G.ho.st’s initiative and called for more such partnerships across the Israeli-Palestinian divide.

“One thing we know is of course we need a political solution, but we also know it’s not just about politics. It’s about business,” Blair said.

It would be nice if G.ho.st succeeded, not only with its Internet platform, but in forging real ties between people on both sides of the wall.

 

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