Game On!

November 14, 2008 - 12:30 PM by DavidS · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General

Intense, heated arguments, where opponents vociferously defend their preferred choice; hats, t-shirts, stickers, and buttons announcing to the world whose side you’re on; anthems, loyalty oaths, and in-depth analyses in the paper, on TV, the web, and “talking heads” who get paid to blather on incessantly, trying to figure out who’s going to win. And, finally, the big showdown, the final battle in which one contender tastes the thrill of victory – or the agony of the feet (I mean defeat!).

It could be only one of two things: Sports – or politics. Both inspire feelings of glory, contempt, anger, and, of course, hope. The correlation between the two is an interesting example of how opposites meet. Politics are in the front of the newspaper and sports in the back, so you could essentially read the paper from right to left and get the same information – which is good for us Hebrew readers. But that’s another subject.

Here’s another example of the correlation between sports and politics – with a Hebrew (Israeli) connection, no less. On election night, a hologram of CNN political correspondent Jessica Yellin was beamed into the network’s New York newsroom, making it seem as if she were standing there giving her report. But she wasn’t in New York – she was in Chicago covering the celebration of Barack Obama’s election by residents of his hometown. And the technology that made this possible was developed by a company based in Kfar Saba, called SportVU – which designed the technology for broadcasters of sporting events!

According to CNN, network officials saw the system in action at soccer games in Europe, and decided it would work for them on election night. SportVu has been used extensively in Germany, Spain and Italy, company marketing director Shimon Katzubes told me in a recent interview. It’s easy to run, too, Katzubes says. “All we need are three stationary cameras – no panning is necessary – to take in the live action, and the SportVU applications do the rest.” The fact that a system developed for sporting events could be deployed so easily to broadcast an election may just be coincidental – technology is supposed to be multitaskable. But what does the correlation between sports and politics mean for voters? That we should be looking at elections as spectator sports? Something to think about for 2012, I guess.

Share with others

Tags: 2012, analyses, anthems, buttons, correspondent, election, Europe, hats, Jessica Yellin, kfar saba, loyalty oaths, Politics, race, Shimon Katzubes, soccer, Sports, SportVU, stickers, t-shirts, Technology, vote

Googling for Flu

November 13, 2008 - 1:12 AM by DavidS · 1 Comment
Filed under: General

Fewer Americans may get the flu this year – thanks to technology developed in Israel. Notice I didn’t say “medicine” or “vaccine,” but technology – in the form of Google Flu Trends (http://www.google.org/flutrends/), developed at the Google research and development center in Tel Aviv.

Google Trends lets you see how often a search term is entered into the Google “omnibox” across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The idea behind Flu Trends is to give people in specific regions a heads up on whether their area is set to be invaded by flu bugs. An uptick in searches for flu-related information, like symptoms and medications, would indicate that the disease is beginning to take hold in a particular area, according to Google’s blog (http://tinyurl.com/5lxh9v).

“Our team found that certain aggregated search queries tend to be very common during flu season each year. We compared these aggregated queries against data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and we found that there’s a very close relationship between the frequency of these search queries and the number of people who are experiencing flu-like symptoms each week. As a result, if we tally each day’s flu-related search queries, we can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness,” the blog says.

While most people don’t even realize that Google has a presence in Israel, the fact is the company has two development centers here – one of the few countries in the world to be graced with such an honor, and an indication of how highly Google values Israeli researchers and engineers. Yoelle Mark, heado of Google’s Haifa R&D center (the other one is in Tel Aviv), who spoke at a recent Google conference here. Trends was largely developed in Haifa.

But it turns out that Google has been not only using made in Israel tech – its whole identity could be considered to have been created here, according to this article in Haaretz. Artist Ruth Kedar designed the famous Google logo ten years ago while she was at Stanford in California. According to Kedar, the logo’s simple look is deceptive, hiding its complex layers. “Someone who sees the logo for the first time doesn’t necessarily need to absorb all the layers and considerations behind every decision – it’s better for him to discover something new every time,” the article quotes here as saying.

“It somewhat amuses me to turn on the computer and look at the logo I designed. But it also fills me with pride,” she said. “When you say Google to people today, they immediately see the colorful logo.”

Share with others