The week of September 7, 2008 was on the quiet side regarding major breakthroughs or mergers and acquisitions related to Israeli companies. That had little effect on the buzz about Israeli companies though. Techcrunch50 took place last week in which 6 (SIX!) Israeli companies were finalists (out of 52) and a 7th was selected by the audience after seeing its demo in the DemoPit. While most of the selected Israeli finalists focus on the consumer market, one finalist that did not was Devunity, which is one of the first collaboration tools for coders. Aside from TechCrunch50, Shari Arison announced that she invested $100 million in a new water company and Microsoft Israel unveiled a new keyboard-free touch technology. As always, there was much more that happened last week. Check out the rest of the 17 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of September 7, 2008 below.

Cleantech
Israeli Cleantech Companies Sought for Delegation to California

Ormat buys geothermal rights in Alaska

Arison invests $100 million in new water company

Investments
Cleantech cash piles up in Israel

Local officials to embark on trade mission to Israel

Israeli hi-tech stocks feel pinch of slow US market

TechCrunch50
Israel Makes Strong TC50 Showing

Israeli Web Scene – Ready for Phase III

Products to Watch at TechCrunch50

TC50: Translate your blog, tackle your email and two other companies from the language and platform session

TC50: Devunity Offers Browser-Based Collaborative Coding

Miscellaneous
Israel plays key role in CERN super collider exercise

Who are the 100 most influential people in Israel?

IDT seeks to develop energy in Israel

Spain’s Optenet Licenses Commtouch Reputation Service for Carrier and Enterprise Email Security Offerings

Siano’s Mobile TV Receiver and Antenna Chips Power AvMap’s Geosat 6 Phone TV

Microsoft Israel unveils keyboard-free touch technology

About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel.  Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.

*About the Weekly Headlines image: The Star of David in the image was found on Flickr and is used under the Creative Commons license. It was originally uploaded by Flickr member, zeevveez. The overall Weekly Headlines image was designed by Lisa Damast.