During the week of May 16, 2010, BrightSource Energy announced that it raised $150 million to explore solar thermal. Israel’s stocks were upgraded to ‘Developed’ and Israel’s economy was ranked the 17th most competitive and number one for resilience and R&D. For these stories and more, see this week’s headlines below.

Cleantech
1. BrightSource raises $150m to back solar thermal ambitions

2. Pythagoras Solar Introduces Photovoltaic Glass Unit

Investment and Economy
3. Israel ranked 17th-most competitive economy

4. Israeli Stocks Upgraded from ‘Emerging’ to ‘Developed’

5. Dalton McGuinty goes to Israel to boost trade

6. NDS to augment investments in China in 2010; relocate part R&D resource from India and Israel

Information Technology
7. Tawkon Releases BlackBerry Radiation App, Visits Apple To Discuss Rejection

8. BluePhoenix to Expend Its Software Offering, Will Add COBOL Software to the Company Portfolio

Miscellaneous
9. ISRAEL: Nanotech institute launched

10. Asus to launch netbook with plug-in mobile phone?

Since Modu was founded in 2007, it has been interesting to watch it rise, as it attracted media attention and raised $85 million, and fall, with postponed and cancelled cell carrier launch plans and massive layoffs.

A victim of the poor economy and the rise in popularity of smartphones, led by Apple’s iPhone, Modu seemed to be breathing its last breaths last November when it announced its largest round of layoffs (110 employees).

Though it seemed that the end was near for Modu, which was founded by serial entrepreneur Dov Moran, in the past week the company has resurfaced, not as a deadpool topic, but as a partner of netbook developer, Asus.

Rumors abound that Asus is working on a new netbook that will enable interconnectivity between smartphones and its netbooks. The benefit will be that netbook users can access the Internet anywhere using the 3G network of their smartphones instead of relying on WiFi.

If Asus, which has its own line of phones, really is working with Modu on this, this could be huge for Modu. Either way, considering its recent partnerships and launches, there still might be a bright future for Modu after all.

During the Week of August 16, 2009, DroidSecurity was revealed to be developing consumer and enterprise security software for Android phones and netbooks. Wanova raised $13 million for its new breed of desktop virtualization software and Israeli researchers demonstrated how DNA evidence can be fabricated. For these stories and more, check below for this week’s 11 Israel-related headlines.

Cleantech
1. The Taga Hybrid Bike-Stroller Goes from Road to Whole Foods Shopping in 30s Flat

2. A Mighty Hot Wind for Solar

Investing
3. Wanova raises $13 M for a new breed of desktop virtualization software

4. Oracle Invests in Israeli Startup ComAbility

Information Technology
5. Start-up DroidSecurity tackles Google Android security

6. Bsafe Adds AIX Support to Auditing and SIEM Product

7. eSafe SmartSuite offers intelligent inspection of all inbound and outbound Web and mail traffic

Miscellaneous
8. Figures show fewer jobless, but even fewer jobs

9. DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Research Says

10. Modu going touchscreen, confirmed for UK 2010

11. Real-Time Navigation a Reality with Waze

Two big deals were announced during the week of February 8, 2009. Solar energy company BrightSource inked the largest solar energy deal ever that will help power Southern California, while Web 2.0 news and blog recommendation engine, Outbrain raised an impressive $12 million. Google Israel announced that it will be restructuring and Dell introduced the Latitude XT2 Multitouch Tablet, its latest laptop to use N-Trig’s multitouch technology. For these stories and more, check out this week’s 16 Israel-related headlines below.

Cleantech
1. BrightSource Inks 1.3GW SoCal Edison Deal

2. Lamar Testing Solar-Powered Digital Billboards

3. Crisis Bodes Well For Electric Cars

4. Israeli Solar Company AORA Raises $5 Million

Investments
5. Israel’s Pontis gets $19.65 mln in equity financing

6. Outbrain, the news story recommendation service, gets $12M

Information Technology
7. Dell Intros Latitude XT2 Multitouch Tablet

8. Google Israel restructures

9. Startup Neocleus building bare-metal desktop hypervisor 

10. Industry’s Only Clientless Endpoint Security Management Solution

11. Acronova’s Entry Level DVD-R Duplication System Now Shipped with TrusCont Copy Protection System

Telecom/Mobile
12. Modu unveil modular cellphone jackets, promise big MWC launch news

13. Apps the new battlefield for mobile industry (Nexperience)  

14. Having Text? Cell Phone Users Are Cheating on Their Partners

Miscellaneous
15. How Social Media War Was Waged in Gaza-Israel Conflict

16. ‘Waltz with Bashir’ named WGA’s ‘best documentary’

Project Better Place, telecommunications and speculation about the current state and future of Israel’s hi-tech industry highlight the technology news related to Israel during the week of July 20, 2008. Both the UK and some fuel companies are mulling joining the electric car company, while telecom company, Amimon announced that it will be working with major electronics corporations to establish a WHDI standard for Wireless HDTV connections. Although, news about Israel’s hi-tech industry’s “brain drain,” isn’t new, news about the impact of the strength of the Israeli Shekel vs. the U.S. dollar, the latest crisis are. Companies that created R&D centers in Israel for the benefits of an educated work force that would require less money than their U.S. and Western European equivalents are now freezing their Israeli employees’ incomes and outsourcing to Eastern European countries where it is still cheaper. For more on these stories and the rest of this week’s 23 Israel-related technology headlines, check the list below.

Cleantech
Fuel cos may join Better Place

UK may join Project Better Place

M&A and Investments
New VC fund seeks TV, movie investments

Breach Security raises $6m

Road safety technology co GreenRoad raises $3m

Agro-biotech start-up Kiima raises $8m

Summary of Israeli High-Tech Company Capital Raising Q2 / H1 2008

Information Technology
SISENSE
Upgrades its Business Intelligence Software With a New Release to
Support Analysis and Charting on top of CSV, EXCEL 2007, Access 2007
FILES; Beta Available for Free

Company Uncovered: Commtouch

Reimagining computer repair

Internet/Web 2.0
Google as a start-up?

PredictAd Leverages Israeli Partnerships for Global Growth (Israel Media Tour)

American-Israel Chamber of Commerce Announces First U.S.-Israel Web 2.0 Business Exchange: “Empowering the Connected Enterprise”

Telecommunications
Cellcom markets mobile music

Israeli co to launch cellphone-based people finder

Mobixell pioneers technology for cellphone ads

modu selected by AlwaysOn as the Top Mobile Company of AO Global 250

Electronics Heavyweights Work Together on WHDI Technology

Next-Gen Cellphones To Have Israeli Ring

Miscellaneous
Venture IPO drought worst in 30 years

Israel Turns to Outsourcing as the Shekel Soars

Israel neglects its oil fields

Infrastructures Ministry to launch alternative energy center

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.

What newsworthy events came from Israel in May? Enough for a special May headline sum up. The biggest stories of the month, of course, were the Presidential Conference, Project Better Place’s unveiling its electric car prototype and VMware’s acquisition of B-hive Networks. Other exciting news that received less international coverage, but are also noteworthy, included the Israel Venture Association’s Annual Hi-Tech Conference and that OpTier, a business service management software provider, is currently raising funds to make an acquisition. For these stories and the rest of the major headlines from May 2008 check out the 30 Israel-related technology headlines below:

Israel at 60
Israel Presidential Conference

Yahoo’s Susan Decker: Content is king

Remarks by President Bush, President Peres of Israel and Prime Minister Olmert of Israel

Israel at 60: 10 historic quotes and 1 joke

Google co-founder lauds Israeli innovation in tech, environment

Cleantech
Project Better Place presents electric car prototype

Techwatch: Solel closes second major contract

N-trig and Its Supply Chain Go “Green” to Help Protect the Environment

Information Technology
Shunra Software Announces New Chief Technology Officer as Company Expands Application Performance and Analysis Portfolio

Voltaire and LSI to Cross-Certify InfiniBand Storage Products

Sicap and Red Bend Sign Agreement for Interoperable Device Management

Aternity Named as 2008 American Business Awards Finalist

XMPie Steps Up Web-Enabled Automation with Enhanced uStore

Information Security
Commtouch and Scalix Collaboration Brings Real Time Messaging
Security to Linux-based E-mail Servers

Zones to Resell Applicure Web Application Firewall Technology

Check Point Pushes Virtualized Browser Protection

Info Security Products Guide Names Safend Winner of the 2008 Best
Deployment Scenario Awards

Investments and M&A
Wanaka closes first fund at $50 million

Lightspeed Venture Partners Closes $800 Million Fund VIII

BTM co OpTier raising funds for acquisition

VMware to Acquire B-hive Networks to Further Enhance Virtualization Platform With Application Performance Management

Telecommunications
MobileMax in cellular-to-VoIP deal

modu in talks on handset launch

Israeli company aims to speed up the Internet

Miscellaneous
Israel Venture Association’s Annual Hi-Tech
Conference 2008 Hits the Road

Touchwall: Microsoft’s Inexpensive Wall-Based Multi-Touch Interface

High Tech Puts Israel in the Black

Israel’s Garage Geeks Gather to Hear Google’s Brin

Aniboom and I-play Partner to Create Animated Series Based on Popular
Casual Games for Distribution Across Mobile, Online and Television
Platforms

Copenda’s New Features Ease Communication
Across Social Networking and Dating Sites

(Picture of me at the 2008 Presidential Conference playing with a modu – one of the world’s smallest cell phones. Thanks Oren for taking this! Get to know Oren and modu better by checking out the modu blog.)

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.

During the week of May 4, 2008, Israel turned 60 and a few technology companies announced that they will be featured “Enterprises of Tomorrow” during the Israeli Presidential Conference Facing Tomorrow taking place on May 13 to May 15, 2008. The Conference has been organized by Israeli President Shimon Peres and, as the title implies, will focus on the future.

Twenty-seven dignitaries including President Bush and former Prime Minister of England, Tony Blair, will be on hand for the event, as will several tech luminaries, including Google Co-founder, Sergey Brin; and Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Yossi Vardi, perhaps Israel’s greatest entrepreneur, is the Director of Science and Technology Track for the Conference and will lead one of the panels.

In anticipation for the Conference, which I will be attending on May 15th, this post as well as others to come this week will be in relation to the Conference, Israel’s 60th and technology, and the 60 “Enterprises of Tomorrow.” To get started, here are 10 headlines, mainly from the past week of May 4, 2008, that relate to some of Israel’s “Enterprises of Tomorrow.”

modu at the Presidential Conference

STMicroelectronics and Mobileye Deliver Second-Generation System-on-Chip for Vision-Based Driver Assistance Systems

AqWise Launches the Next Generation Remote N’ Control(TM) Solution for
Total Nitrogen Removal and Introduces Its AGAR® Process at IFAT 2008

Israel Cleantech Ventures closes $75m debut fund

Project Better Place debuts electric car

Comsys Selected as ‘Enterprise of Tomorrow’
to Feature at Israeli Presidential Conference

Updated fring version for iPhone (pre-release v. 0.9785)

Israel startup developing software system to identify terrorists

Camero Launches Handheld “Through-Wall Vision” Product

C-true Imaging – “Your Face is your key”

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.

Whether through modular cell phones or making cellphone calls from 30,000 feet up in the air on a plane, Israeli companies sure are busy finding new and improved ways for people to connect with each other on the go. Aerophone Ltd, an Israeli company best known for making military communication products, announced today that it has developed a “communication system,
now ready for series production, with which mobile telephone calls can
be made from aircraft – independent of GSM/CDMA ground stations.”

Mobile phone calls in flight will cost about $1.60 a minute and will be payable to existing mobile carriers. While it isn’t clear why the company has shifted its primary focus from being a military communication product manufacturer to being an aviation communication provider, the company’s website emphasizes that its mission is

“to develop, manufacture, and market revolutionary, state of the
art aviation cellular network systems operating on the fleet of aircraft.”

The company’s aim is

“to establish, for the first time, full cellular communication
services (GSM and CDMA) in commercial airliners in the air.”

As this could come to replace the current in-flight telephone systems, IT professionals should become familiar with what Aerophone’s technology is and how it will impact co-workers making calls on business flights.

Company Facts:

Founded in mid- to late-1990s.

Henry Shabat, CEO and Founder.

Menachem Peery, President and CTO.

Website: www.aerophone.biz