Archive For The “Israeli Tech” Category
A new technological breakthrough is using AI and facial analysis to make it easier to diagnose genetic disorders. DeepGestalt is a deep learning technology created by a team of Israeli and American researchers and computer scientists for the FDNA company based in Boston. The company specializes in building AI-based, next-generation phenotyping (NGP) technologies to “capture, structure and analyze complex human physiological data to produce actionable genomic insights.”
Portions of this article were originally reported in NoCamels.com
DeepGestalt uses novel facial analysis to study photographs of faces and help doctors narrow down the possibilities. While some genetic disorders are easy to diagnose based on facial features, with over 7,000 distinct rare diseases affecting some 350 million people globally, according to the World Health Organization, it can also take years – and dozens of doctor’s appointments – to identify a syndrome.
“With today’s workflow, it can mean about six years for a diagnosis. If you have data in the first year, you can improve a child’s life tremendously. It is very frustrating for a family not to know the diagnosis,” Yaron Gurovich, Chief Technology Officer at FDNA and an Israeli expert in computer vision, tells NoCamels. “Even if you don’t have a cure, to know what to expect, to know what you’re dealing with helps you manage tomorrow.”
DeepGestalt — a combination of the words ‘deep’ for deep learning and the German word ‘gestalt’ which is a pattern of physical phenomena — is a novel facial analysis framework that highlights the facial phenotypes of hundreds of diseases and genetic variations.
According to the Rare Disease Day organization, 1 in 20 people will live with a rare disease at some point in their life. And while this number is high, there is no cure for the majority of rare diseases and many go undiagnosed.
“For years, we’ve relied solely on the ability of medical professionals to identify genetically linked disease. We’ve finally reached a reality where this work can be augmented by AI, and we’re on track to continue developing leading AI frameworks using clinical notes, medical images, and video and voice recordings to further enhance phenotyping in the years to come,” Dekel Gelbman, CEO of FDNA, said in a statement.
DeepGestalt’s neural network is trained on a dataset of over 150,000 patients, curated through Face2Gene, a community-driven phenotyping platform. The researchers trained DeepGestalt on 17,000 images and watched as it correctly labeled more than 200 genetic syndromes.
In another test, the artificial intelligence technology sifted through another 502 photographs to identify potential genetic disorders.
DeepGestalt provided the correct answer 91 percent of the time.
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Indeed, FDNA, a leader in artificial intelligence and precision medicine, in collaboration with a team of scientists and researchers, published a milestone study earlier this year, entitled “Identifying Facial Phenotypes of Genetic Disorders Using Deep Learning” in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Medicine.
Diane Israel is a Chicago native and long-time supporter and advocate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She is also famous for her culinary recipes. Diane can be reached at Diane@IsraelOnIsrael.com
My recent article, “Internet Apocalypse?” lays out the three most vulnerable points of attack that could potentially shut down the entire Internet, and how any such catastrophe would likely not be global but rather localized to a city or region, which is not to say that such a containment would not still be a total failure. What follows is an excerpt from a recent story published by NoCamels.com with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu setting the stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the robotic voice said, “this conference has just been hacked. Ironic, isn’t it? A conference dedicated to cybersecurity being hacked.”
“We are based in a country not far from Israel. That’s all you need to know for now. The bank accounts of everyone sitting in this hall have just been frozen. The intellectual property of your companies is in our hands, so are your private conversations. This information is being sent to your competition and your enemies,” it went on.
It was the fourth day of the 8th annual 2018 Cyber Week conference at Tel Aviv University, a global event gathering leading cybersecurity researchers, entrepreneurs, and insiders, began with a threat.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a main speaker at the five-day event, took to the stage on Wednesday and aired an audio clip announcing a large-scale hack to an audience of some 8,000 attendees from 85 countries.
The threat was not real; Netanyahu was simply trying to drive home a point. “This is not far-fetched,” he said, warning that hackers and state-backed actors “can do everything that you heard here and much more.”
“Hackers can cripple our most sensitive systems. They can even take over, literally take over, some of those vital systems. And it is not something that is theoretical in the future. It’s already happening in the present, as you well know. You wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have companies. There wouldn’t be this thriving business if there wasn’t this amazing threat to our banks, our airplanes, even our weapons,” Netanyahu said.
“This is a supreme test for our civilization. It is going to be tested not only by criminal organizations, by terrorists, but by other states,” he said. “This is why we’re holding this cyber conference here. It is to protect the present and ensure the future, no less than that.”
Netanyahu also praised the cybersecurity ecosystem in Israel, saying the country is “punching at 200 times above our weight here.”
When a rookie pilot flies a commercial jetliner for the first time, it’s not a test. The plane is loaded, often to capacity, with paying passengers. This may be shocking but it’s by no means reckless or dangerous. In fact, it’s the safest way to train pilots. Really? Their first time flying, say a Boeing 737 is no drill.
That’s how reliable flight simulators have gotten. After all, should the pilot trainee crash the plane there is no catastrophe save for the pilots wounded ego. For autonomous vehicles, the same simulators must also be in place, and be even more reliable for obvious reasons. There’s no driver to train but rather a computer, or computers, really thousands, if not millions of data points per second all streaming data to a central cloud server to manage every autonomous car at once.
The following article excerpt was originally published on NoCamels.com.
Audi Partners With Israeli Startup Cognata For Autonomous Car Development
German car maker Audi AG has partnered with Israeli startup Cognata, which has developed an automotive simulation platform, to forward the development of autonomous vehicles, the Israeli company announced this week. The simulations will be conducted through AID (Autonomous Intelligence Drive), a subsidiary of the German automotive company.
The Israeli startup has signed a long-term contract with Audi in which Cognata’s breakthrough tech will be integrated into AID, which will then implement the company’s cloud-based solution for all simulation purposes on a grand scale, at all stages of development and production of its vehicles.
“We are extremely excited,” Cognata CEO Danny Atsmon tells NoCamels, “We are giving Audi what we call an end-to-end product – starting from development moving to a cloud solution and in the end, an actual embedded device.”
“We are confident that simulation is a key tool to increase the pace of development and an essential tool for testing our products as collateral,” Alex Hague, CTO at AID, said in the statement.
Cognata was founded by Atsmon in June 2016. It has raised a total of $5 million since 2017, from investors that include car tech fund Maniv Mobility, French auto parts maker Vealeo, Airbus venture capital fund Airbus Ventures and Tel Aviv early-stage venture capital firm Emerge.
Cognata’s innovative tech
Cognata’s 3D simulator is powered by artificial intelligence, deep learning, and computer vision to create a “hyper-realistic artificial environment in which comprehensive and secure simulations of large-scale autonomous vehicles are conducted before testing vehicles on real roads,” the company says.
The cloud simulator, powered by deep-learning algorithms, trains autonomous car software through virtual driving, allowing the software to learn quickly. The simulator, which has roads, vehicles, and can even generate various weather conditions, can simulate thousands of different scenarios so that the cars will constantly be learning to drive in a real-life manner.
The system is based on three layers of different deep-learning algorithms, Atmson tells NoCamels. The first two layers make up objects in the surrounding environment as well as other elements like cars, time of day, and weather conditions. The third is a sensing layer which behaves as if the car is powered by real-life sensors. Cognata models around 40 sensors used in autonomous driving systems, mimicking how they would respond to the static and dynamic environment to generate data that the cars can process.
Audi and BMW are just some of the international car companies working with Israeli startups to integrate auto tech.
Cognata’s platform also offers 3D simulation of real-life cities. So far, the company has been able to create simulations in San Francisco, Munich, and Ness Tziona in Israel. There are big differences, of course, Atsmon explains. In San Francisco, for example, drivers must be accustomed to driving up and down seven hills on which the city is built, some of which are quite steep.
Atsmon has a rich computer vision and deep learning background, founding startups like Picitup, a computer vision company that identifies the content of smartphone images and iOnRoad, a company that uses a smartphone camera to warn drivers they are in danger. Atsmon sold the road safety app developer to Harman International Industries, one of the world’s largest vehicle audio, media, and navigation system companies, in 2013 for an undisclosed amount and then spent three years leading Harman’s team as CTO before moving on to Cognata. Harman later became a subsidiary of electronics giant Samsung in 2016.
Atsmon says leading the teams at these startups helped prepare him for the competition worldwide. Israel’s advances in artificial intelligence, deep learning, and computer vision are what sets its entrepreneurs apart in auto tech, he tells NoCamels.
“If you look at other startups in the simulation world, they’re recreating very small scenes, nothing close to what we have here,” Atsmon previously told NoCamels.
US multinational Intel confirmed on Monday that it is acquiring Israeli mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) solutions company Moovit for approximately $900 million. The deal was first reported on Sunday by Israel business daily TheMarker which reported the acquisition value at $1 billion.
Intel previously led a $50 million investment in Moovit in 2018 and announced a partnership with Mobileye, the Jerusalem-based developer of driver assistance system acquired by Intel Corporation for $15.3 billion in 2017 in what is the biggest deal in Israeli high-tech history.
This article was originally posted by NoCamels.com. See Featured article: Artificial Intelligence.
Intel said in a statement on Monday that the acquisition of Moovit will bring Mobileye “closer to achieving its plan to become a complete mobility provider, including robotaxi services, which is forecast to be an estimated $160 billion opportunity by 2030.”
“With this acquisition, Mobileye will be able to use Moovit’s large proprietary transportation dataset to optimize predictive technologies based on customer demand and traffic patterns, as well as tap into Moovit’s transit data repository of more than 7,500 key transit agencies and operators, and improve the consumer experience for more than 800 million users worldwide,” Intel said.
Headquartered in Ness Ziona, Moovit was founded in 2012 by Nir Erez, Yaron Evron, and Roy Bick and developed the first free crowdsourced app that provides real-time bus, train, subway, and light rail schedules and offers route options to help users find the quickest, most efficient way to their destinations. In addition to its public transportation data features, Moovit’s mobility options are quite extensive and include ride-hailing companies, car-sharing companies, station-based bike-share systems, dockless bikes, scooters and Mopeds.
Today, Moovit has over 800 million users on its free mobile and web app, providing mobility options in 3,100 cities, 100 countries, and in 45 languages. The company also sells transit data analytics to municipalities and public transport operators through its Smart Transit Suite, a platform that provides real-time information on people’s movement, optimal routes, wait times, locations of buses and trains and other data for network managing. Moovit collects more than 6 billion data points daily about traffic flow and user demand.
Mobileye co-founder Professor Amnon Shashua, senior VP at Intel and a member of Moovit’s board of directors since 2018 said the company is a “critical piece to our mobility stack” and will accelerate “our way toward becoming a complete mobility provider.”
Mobileye has been developing self-driving technology and, earlier this year, announced two new partnerships for robotaxi-based mobility solutions powered by Mobileye’s autonomous vehicle technology, and an agreement with SAIC, a leading Chinese OEM to use Mobileye’s Road Experience Management (REM) mapping technology to prepare the country for autonomous vehicles.
Moovit “owns underlying assets and capabilities, which will give us the insight needed to turn on cost- and demand-optimized driverless mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) almost anywhere in the world,” Shashua wrote on Monday, explaining Intel’s strategy in acquiring the Israeli company.
By working together as part of Intel and Mobileye, Moovit will advance the company’s MaaS strategy and the global adoption of autonomous transportation, Intel said.
Moovit will join the Mobileye business while retaining its brand and existing partnerships, Intel indicated. Erez will join Mobileye’s executive team as an executive vice president.
“Intel’s purpose is to create world-changing technology that enriches the lives of every person on Earth, and our Mobileye team delivers on that purpose every day,” said Intel CEO Bob Swan. “Mobileye’s ADAS technology is already improving the safety of millions of cars on the road, and Moovit accelerates their ability to truly revolutionize transportation – reducing congestion and saving lives – as a full-stack mobility provider.”
Diane Israel is a Chicago native and long-time supporter and advocate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She is also famous for her culinary recipes. Diane can be reached at Diane@IsraelOnIsrael.com
The Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) said on Tuesday that it completed a “groundbreaking scientific development” toward a potential treatment for COVID-19 based on an antibody that neutralizes SARS-CoV2, the coronavirus that causes the disease.
This article was originally posted by NoCamels.com. See Featured article: Artificial Intelligence.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense speaking on behalf of the institute emphasized that this achievement could potentially develop into a treatment for COVID-19 patients but that the development was not a vaccine.
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The IIBR is a governmental research center specializing in biology, chemistry and environmental sciences that falls under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister’s Office. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tapped the secretive institute in early February to begin development on producing a vaccine. In early April, the center reported “significant progress” and trials on animals.
The institute has also been involved in plasma collection from Israelis who have recovered from COVID-19 to research antibodies, proteins made by the immune system that can attack the virus.
“This is an important milestone, which will be followed by a series of complex tests and a process of regulatory approvals,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that the process could take several months given “the nature of this breakthrough.”
The development has three key parameters, according to the IIBR: first, the antibody is monoclonal (lab-made identical immune cells that are all clones of a unique parent cell), and contains a low proportion of harmful proteins; second, the institute has “demonstrated the ability of the antibody to neutralize the coronavirus”; and third, the antibody was specifically tested on SARS CoV2.
“Based on comprehensive scientific publications from around the globe, it appears that the IIBR is the first institution to achieve a scientific breakthrough that meets all three of the aforementioned parameters simultaneously,” the ministry said on Tuesday.
The Ness Ziona-based institute is now pursuing a patent for its development, according to the announcement, after which it will approach international manufacturers.
Meanwhile, a study in the Netherlands published this week in Nature Communications also claimed that a human monoclonal antibody neutralized SARS-CoV-2, and SARS-CoV, in a lab setting.
“Monoclonal antibodies targeting vulnerable sites on viral surface proteins are increasingly recognized as a promising class of drugs against infectious diseases and have shown therapeutic efficacy for a number of viruses,” the scientists of this study wrote.
The antibody known as 47D11, targeted the spike protein that gives the coronavirus its name and shape, and “exhibited cross-neutralizing activity of SARS-S and SARS2-S,” according to the researchers.
These neutralizing antibodies “can alter the course of infection in the infected host supporting virus clearance or protect an uninfected host that is exposed to the virus,” and the 47D11 antibody can either alone or in combination with pharmaceuticals and therapies, offer potential prevention and/or treatment of COVID-19, according to the study.
Diane Israel is a Chicago native and long-time supporter and advocate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She is also famous for her culinary recipes. Diane can be reached at Diane@IsraelOnIsrael.com
The smart home, which some predict will be a reality by as soon as 2024, is exactly what you think it is. A control center for all the electronic anatomy that comprises a home. Furnace/AC, security, household appliances such as washer and dryer, stove, frig, dishwasher, and so on…plus a lot more than you
The following content was first reported by NoCamels.com
Eran Barkat, Partner at BRM Group, says that just like we imagine an autonomous, smart supermarket, the same autonomy can be applied to the home. The future indeed lies in the transformation of our private residences into smart, autonomous spaces, he says.
“Imagine coming back home from work and having your house connected to your personal calendar, a robot setting up the table for dinner and washing your clothes and hot water at your immediate disposal,” he says.
The trend of smart homes is already happening and incorporates everything from a robot that anticipates people’s needs to a fridge that indicates if the right ingredients are on-hand while regulating its own temperature.
This trend sheds light on the opportunities that come with autonomous utilities, namely privacy, comfort, and security.
As part of this ongoing phenomenon, attention is also drawn to autonomous home logistics, whereby emotional needs are anticipated and met. Barkat imagines a future where visits to the supermarket will become obsolete, while home logistics will be seamlessly automatized.
Diane Israel is a Chicago native and long-time supporter and advocate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She is also famous for her culinary recipes. Diane can be reached at Diane@IsraelOnIsrael.com
Learn more about Diane Israel. Also, see Diane Israel on LinkedIn.
This story was originally reported by NoCamels.com.
Habana Labs, an Israeli startup that develops AI processors, announced on Thursday that it has secured $75 million in a Series B funding led by Intel Capital, with participation from WRV Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures and existing investors.
Since it was founded in 2016, Habana Labs has raised a total of $120 million.
The new funding will go toward continued growth, including next-generation processors, sales, and customer support, said Habana Labs CEO David Dahan.
Related Story: Artificial Intelligence: Part 1.
“We are excited to invest in a dynamic team with a proven track record in the industry,” said Wendell Brooks, Senior Vice President of Intel Corporation and President of Intel Capital. “Habana Labs’ innovation and execution on their vision will help drive the next evolution of Artificial Intelligence.”
“AI brings a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a significant wave of new semiconductor companies, and venture firms are heavily investing in AI-focused chip startups”, said Lip-Bu Tan, Founding Partner of WRV Capital, a leading international venture firm focusing on semiconductors and related hardware, systems, and software. “Among all AI semiconductor startups, Habana Labs is the first, and still the only one, which introduced a production-ready AI processor. We are delighted to partner with Intel in backing Habana Labs’ products and its extraordinary team.”
Diane Israel is a Chicago native and long-time supporter and advocate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She is also famous for her culinary recipes. Diane can be reached at Diane@IsraelOnIsrael.com
In part one of, “From ‘Content is King’ to GODLIKE“, we introduced some mind-boggling facts: namely that:
- 90 percent of all content ever generated in the history of mankind, was created in the last two years
- 99 percent of all content is yet to be accessed, let alone worked, mined or analyzed.
Throw artificial intelligence (AI) in the mix and it quickly becomes apparent that we are embarking on the creation of a technology that would rival any god ever envisioned — and there have been thousands. The big difference between the gods of the past and those of the present are worth elucidating.
Traditional or conventional gods provided answers to most if not all of life’s mysteries. Of course, there are problems with that, most notably, a lack of empirical rigors to go along with the robustness of the claims. Newer gods — I’ll use Google’s search engine as an example — are empirical for sure, and use information, i.e., empirical evidence, as an epistemic foundation. From there the commonalities between the old and new intersect again since both models are pretty big on predictions (or prophecy). And before I can complete that sentence we experience yet another bifurcation with the old depending on one or another form or revealed truth and the Google god relying on inference, induction, and most recently, artificial intelligence to answer the secular prayer more commonly known simply as THE SEARCH.
God or godlike dichotomies aside, what’s a civilization to do with all this content, especially since 99 percent of it is just sitting here and there (and everywhere), doing nothing? Well, we already have the technology, i.e., Google and similar technology, to harness it. That’s one thing but taking benign predictability — the search — to profound prophecy and beyond through weird and counterintuitive correlations that provide answers even before we think of them, let alone type them into Google, is where the future of content vis-a-vis AI is heading.
The next article will get into the specifics of precisely how this might look, using everyday problems and contemplations.
Diane Israel is a Chicago native and long-time supporter and advocate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She is also famous for her culinary recipes. Diane can be reached at Diane@IsraelOnIsrael.com
Some 50,000 Israelis are currently in quarantine with a majority of the rest of the population practicing social distancing, caring for kids out of daycares and schools, and trying to get the hang of the Health Ministry’s changing directives — which include staying home, limiting contact, and being at least two meters away from the next person if they are out.
This article was originally posted by NoCamels.com. See Featured article: Artificial Intelligence.
Hours and days at home have many capitulating to Netflix or mindlessly scrolling social media while attempting to keep children busy.
While museums, clubs, and other recreational establishments have also closed, they’ve made a dedicated effort to stay on the radar, not only to connect with their patrons but also to offer those cooped up at home some options amidst a harsher reality.
NoCamels highlights six of these institutions, programs, apps, and courses and how they’re helping to offer comfort and entertainment and infuse culture into Israel’s new normal.
Google Arts & Culture has partnered with over 500 museums and galleries to feature virtual tours and online exhibits from the most famous museums around the world.
Among prestigious names such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, is The Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Google’s platform gives a detailed description of the museum — perhaps best known for housing the Dead Sea Scrolls — and allows viewers to experience virtual reality tours from the museum.
The museum offers one online exhibit called “Questions of Identity,” as part of the platform, featuring historical costumes from the museum’s collection. It also has galleries made up of paintings of Israel, sculptures, ceramics, and more.
NoCamels spoke to Professor Ido Bruno, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the museum, about other virtual projects on the agenda now that most tourists have left the country (Prof. Bruno said they made up 50 percent of the visitors) and residents are staying home.
Diane Israel is a Chicago native and long-time supporter and advocate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She is also famous for her culinary recipes. Diane can be reached at Diane@IsraelOnIsrael.com
A newly released Israeli app will notify users if they’ve crossed paths with a person confirmed to have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus currently raging across the world.
The app, Track Virus, sources data collected by the Israeli Health Ministry which conducts interviews with confirmed patients on their whereabouts and releases the information publicly to help stem the spread of the coronavirus in Israel. The country has 213 confirmed cases as of March 14, according to ministry data, and some 45,000 people are currently in quarantine either because they had traveled abroad or came into contact with someone diagnosed with the disease.
This article was originally posted by NoCamels.com. See Featured article: Artificial Intelligence.
Israel has taken some of the farthest-reaching measures outside of China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, to help curb the rate of infection in the country. Since late January when the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency, Israel has curbed international travel, barring entry to non-citizens from a number of Asian and European countries, and ordering mandatory hospitalized or home quarantines of 14 days for anyone arriving from abroad. The country has also banned social gatherings of more than 10 people and ordered all kindergartens, schools and universities shut, as well as public venues such as malls, restaurants, gym, theaters, among others.
Each confirmed case in Israel is investigated and while the person’s name is not released, their whereabouts – including dates and times – prior to the diagnosis are publicized widely in official government announcements and in the media. This is done to alert others who may have come into contact with them and who are then tested or ordered into 14-day home quarantine.
The new app seeks to simplify this process and minimize the guesswork, as well as limit the anxiety over possible encounters. It works by crosschecking a user’s path with the paths of confirmed coronavirus patients as listed by the Health Ministry. Should a user have been at the same location frequented by a confirmed patient, they will receive a notification letting them know (this works from the moment a user downloads the app, and not retroactively).
The information, the developers stress, is anonymized and is not uploaded to the cloud, and the app does not prompt for any form of identification though users do grant geolocation permissions for their smartphones.
Released late last week, Track Virus is the brainchild of Ori Fadlon, a former social media manager of Maccabi Tel Aviv FC, who partnered with Israeli software development company PandaOS to roll out the app quickly
“We did three-four months’ worth of work – development, design, programming – in a matter of three-four days but the urgency was real and it all happened very quickly,” Fadlon tells NoCamels in a phone interview.
The app currently has over 75,000 downloads and that number is growing fast, he says. It is available in Hebrew and English for Android users and will soon be rolled out on iOS.
“We’re doing this to help people, to save them. It’s for the good of society,” Fadlon explains.
Track Virus partnered with Israel’s United Hatzalah, a volunteer-based emergency medical care organization, to help track information coming in from the Health Ministry.
“As the number of coronavirus patients rises the harder it becomes for the public to keep track of all the different places that they have all been and the updates from the Health Ministry. Additionally, people often have a hard time recalling exactly where they have been and when. The app solves both of these problems,” said United Hatzalah VP of Operations Dov Maisel in a statement.
Diane Israel is a Chicago native and long-time supporter and advocate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She is also famous for her culinary recipes. Diane can be reached at Diane@IsraelOnIsrael.com