In the end, it’s the basic commodities that really count. Without a good computer, for example, all the hi-tech database programming tricks are just ideas in the head of a geek. And without a keyboard, you wouldn’t even be able to write a simple letter. Much less hang ten on that database!

That’s right: Keyboards are an important part of the tech revolution, too, and deserve to be recognized for their role. Lest you think, however, that there is little that can be done to technically improve the old workhorse, Raviv Orfeli of Holon-based IKBS-International Keyboard Solutions has some news for [...]]]> In the end, it’s the basic commodities that really count. Without a good computer, for example, all the hi-tech database programming tricks are just ideas in the head of a geek. And without a keyboard, you wouldn’t even be able to write a simple letter. Much less hang ten on that database!

That’s right: Keyboards are an important part of the tech revolution, too, and deserve to be recognized for their role. Lest you think, however, that there is little that can be done to technically improve the old workhorse, Raviv Orfeli of Holon-based IKBS-International Keyboard Solutions has some news for you: Hi-tech laser engraving techniques can give your laptop’s keyboard more worldly. If your laptop, PDA, or cellphone needs to “speak” a foreign language, IKBS will engrave the characters on its keyboard, turning it into a bi-, tri-, or even quad-lingual.

Israelis who commonly buy laptop computers in the U.S. – or, for that matter, Chinese students taking university courses in New York, translators, diplomats, or anyone else who needs access to a language other than the one on their keyboard – have had to make do with “sticker solutions,” where they affix a sticker with the alternative language on the  keys. While stickers are readily available and cheap, they look cheap, says Orfeli. Besides which, they often fade after several months use, and sometimes come loose. Basically, it’s a messy look – one that doesn’t go well with the professional demeanor of businesspeople who need to make a good impression, or students who want to make a cool one.

“People are fed up with those messy stickers or overlays,” Orfeli says. “They look so unprofessional and cumbersome. Imagine an executive going into a meeting with a half peeling sticker on his key. Not a great first impression.” Instead, he suggests an alternative: engraving the characters of the languages users would otherwise use a sticker to mount to display on their keyboards. The engraving is done with laser, creating a thin depression in each key, which is then filled in with paint. With this process, up to four languages can be “installed” on a keyboard, achieving both the utilitarian goal of being able to more easily identify keys, as well as keeping laptops clean and sober.

Technically speaking, Orfeli has been in the keyboard business for years – but he says that he has perfected his company’s unique engraving techniques, refining them to the point where the IKBS system can help out on the go users of not just laptops, but of PDAs and cellphones as well. IKBS has in recent months opened a sales office and production facility in the U.S. (called IKBS-USA), and the company has already struck deals with several large laptop retailers, who will recommend the company’s service to potential customers, as well as ship laptops to IKBS’ offices for customized engraving.

When he first got into the computer business twenty years ago in Holon, Orfeli says, “Laptops were brand new to the computer market and only had English characters on the keys,  customers wanted Hebrew letters as well on the keys so I took white out and painted onto the keys.” They soon faded, though, to the chagrin of Orfeli and the dismay of livid customers – and stickers, the stopgap solution, were unsatisfactory as well. Eventually, he got the idea of using a laser device to engrave the characters onto a keyboard – but it took years to prefect the “light touch” necessary to pull off an engraving job successfully, an especially challenging job, because you get only one chance to do it right.

So far, the response has been extremely positive. Orfeli has contracts with a number of entities to engrave organization keyboards, including a large U.S. government institution that provides advisers to foreign countries. With laptops all the rage on college campuses, IKBS has student representatives at schools in the New York area with significant immigrant populations (students from the Far East have especially taken to the system, Orfeli says), and the company is even working with several Jewish high schools in the metropolitan area, outfitting student laptop keyboards with Hebrew engraving. And, of course, the IKBS team is active in Israel as well, with customers traveling from near and far to get their keyboards engraved at the company’s Holon workshop – while they wait.

The service’s applications extend far beyond the office or college lecture hall, Orfeli says. “For example, if there was a very expensive piece of medical equipment that was produced with an English language keyboard that was to be used in a country where English was not widely understood, we could engrave the device’s keyboard with native language characters, or even pictures, to ensure that users know what button to press and when.” The company even has a deal with the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), whose growing numbers of baby-boomer computer-hip retirees are seeking keyboards with larger characters than standard keyboards come with.

Industries using specialized tech equipment can benefit as well. “When users need access to just a few keys, we can engrave those keys appropriately and paint over the ones not in use, preventing operators from pressing the wrong button, as well as speeding up data entry” Orfeli says. Engraving is likely to be the only way to get alternative languages on a keyboard under these circumstances, he says. “The laptop factory in China or the U.S. manufacturer of a sophisticated medical device is not going to add characters for use by Finnish staff, unless they order thousands of units” Orfeli says – but it’s a situation tailor made for IKBS’ engraving service. And, the engraved key can appear in a variety of colors – white, black, yellow, blue and purple – making it easier for users to identify when switching between functions. And, they’ll even remove stickers already placed on the keyboard by customers who have decided to take “a step up.”

Orfeli sees only success with the company’s foray into U.S. markets. “We have worked with all the major computer and consumer electronics manufacturers. Included in this list are the industry leaders like IBM, HP, Dell, Apple, and Microsoft,” and IKBS can offer keyboards in no fewer than 54 different languages. And while developing a method to engrave keyboards may seem like a “lightweight” achievement compared to many of the other innovations by Israeli tech firms, it’s one that has potentially a far more practical impact than most. “Everyone today uses a laptop, PDA, or smart phone and with globalization, more and more people need access to additional languages as well as their  native tongues. The market for IKBS’ services is huge,” Orfeli says.

Yes, indeed, the technology is here – but the reality of the fully wired high definition entertainment experience still seems to many a distant dream, at least based on the way it’s been progressing. But it’s not [...]]]> The digital future is now. The technology exists to allow a complete digital video experience, over the network – meaning that at home, you’ll be able to build your dream digital entertainment system, with TV and movies delivered to your networked TV (via your HD entertainment system). You don’t need DVDs, and you don’t have to fuss with the cable or satellite box anymore.

Yes, indeed, the technology is here – but the reality of the fully wired high definition entertainment experience still seems to many a distant dream, at least based on the way it’s been progressing. But it’s not technology that’s holding things up; it’s the political economics that’s preventing what could be the biggest thing ever in home entertainment move forward. “Until content providers are assured that the billions of dollars they have at stake is going to be protected, they are going to be very reluctant to move forward,” says Gal Salomon, CEO of Israeli startup Discretix. Which means that in a sense, Discretix isn’t just in the business of protecting data and content, both for users on personal devices, and for content providers. It’s in the vanguard of promoting the digital revolution!

DRM – digital rights management – is really just an outgrowth of Discretix’s main business, which is designing chip-level protection schemes for personal digital devices. When you can’t play a video on a handheld device without a proper license, chances are that Discretix (one of the two biggest companies  in the world providing integrated content protection) may have had something to do with it. While most people identify DRM issues with music in MP3 format, that market is small potatoes compared to what’s at stake in digital video, says Salomon. “Content providers try to create a community of media consumers, whom they know are interested in their content. But in order to create that community you have to have some authentication system, one that content providers know won’t be broken easily. Our solution completely integrates security into the device by building it into the hardware, and that’s something that can make content providers feel confident that they won’t be sharing their valuable content with the rest of the world for free,” he says.

But more important for most users is protecting their own content – messages, schedules, phone numbers. With open systems, such as the Linux-based environments being used on more cellphones, comes a greater ability by hackers to write their own rogue applications or routines that can be delivered to devices when a user surfs to the wrong website or opens the wrong SMS. Digital devices are in essence sitting ducks – and Discretix also provides protection against those threats, as well. “We’ve all heard stories about how users lost flash drives with sensitive information,” says Salomon. “With Discretix’s data protection platform, the drive is useless to anyone who can’t supply the authentication information, and the system can’t be bypassed.”

And because the digital world is so interconnected, with devices able to nearly instantly share information and data with the rest of the world, an effective protection scheme is essential not only for continued development of the digital video market, but also for the development of better and more popular devices. “It’s all about device security and content management, especially given the ability of data to move quickly in digital format. With appropriate protection for both the content provider and customer, neither digital media nor digital device development are going to move forward,” says Salomon.

The protection Discretix provides differs from the usual application based authentication systems used in many older devices and on computers; Discretix protection schemes are built into the device – most of which use flash memory – and are an integral part of it, meaning that attempts to disable the protection system would entail removing a chip soldered into the device, probably disabling it altogether. “It’s a lot more difficult building protection into chips for small devices, because you have a limited space to work with and keep the price down,” says Jacob Greenblatt, chief strategist of Discretix. In fact, Discretix has developed a security platform strictly for flash devices (called CryptoFlash), which the company says is “a driving force behind the expansion of Flash memory into new markets and applications.”

While personal media devices have been hot for years – take cellphones and MP3 players – it’s the iPhone that has completely turned the device industry on its head, given the Apple device’s impact. Manufacturers who make devices for digital content are all busy working on updates and innovations to be included in future products – and as Apple knows, people are willing to line up for a cool device even when the economy isn’t so hot. Discretix had a good year in 2008, with revenues increasing substantially, says Salomon – but with the worldwide recession, Discretix is prepared for the possibility of a tighter market. “Fewer people will upgrade, preferring to keep the devices they already own,” says Greenblatt.

But Discretix is in it for the long haul. “One reason there are so few players in this business – besides ourselves there is a large U.S. company that works in this area as well – is because the turnaround time is long, upwards of two years from design to manufacture,” says Greenblatt. Since Discretix designs its protection schemes on the chip level for integration into devices at the early stage of design and development, manufacturers require a lot of testing and tinkering of the system, to make sure it works seamlessly with the device, and fits in with its design and use philosophy,” he says. Despite this, says Salomon, forecasters say that well over a billion cellphones – and almost as many flash memory chips – will be sold in 2009. Slowdown or not, “it’s still a great opportunity for us, because those and many other devices need security – and we intend to keep growing and shooting for stars in 2009,” he says.

But like so many other theories, the one behind internet shopping just doesn’t work properly – or rather, perhaps, works a little too well. The convenience part they’ve got down pat: A couple of clicks, [...]]]> It’s all about choice and convenience when you go shopping on the internet. Or, it’s supposed to be, at least. That was the theory behind sites like Amazon.com; giving consumers the ability to shop at home, saving them the hassle of going to the store, and giving them the power to make the very best choice possible, with a full array of choices available to them.

But like so many other theories, the one behind internet shopping just doesn’t work properly – or rather, perhaps, works a little too well. The convenience part they’ve got down pat: A couple of clicks, a virtual swipe of the credit card, and your stuff (as they term it at Amazon) is on its way to you. Certainly beats standing on line waiting for service from a surly cashier!

The choice part of the theory is where the problem lies. Choice abounds for almost every type of product. But how do you know you’re getting a truly quality product? In truth, the problem of choice is limited to certain classes of products. When it comes to clothing, for example, most people know what they’re looking for, and what brand, if any, they prefer. Breakfast cereal, books and CDs, even furniture – most people know what they like, and order based on their previous experience with a product or style.

But other items – such as consumer electronics, cell phones, cameras, and many others – are not as easy to purchase. Most of these product lines change very rapidly, so unless a product is truly distinguished, with consumers knowing a lot about it because of extensive media and website coverage (one reason why Apple products are consistently big sellers, I believe), they are going to get swamped by what are for many meaningless details. Camera A has X features and costs Y amount, while Camera B has W features and costs Z amount. But despite the differences, the products seem, at least on paper (or rather, on screen), to be very much alike. How do you distinguish between them? It’s almost like those old time detergent comparisons, where today’s laundry star went up against Brand X. Is Tide better than Brand X? Maybe, but what about Brands A through F? That’s one reason why sales are so popular; people are willing to pay for quality, but if they think all products available to them are of the same quality, why not pay less?

One way web consumers figure out what brand to buy in a sea of choices is by checking the reviews – and sites like Amazon conveniently have customer reviews next to each product. Personally, I enjoy reading the reviews – some of them are very funny. There’s a lot of talent out there! But it’s often hard to rely on the reviews at many sites – after all, the people writing them are probably just as lost as you are! Another alternative is to go to an “expert” review site, like Cnet.com, which checks tens of thousands of products. But there are a lot of expert review sites. Who has time to check them all out?

Not you, says Tomer Tzach, CEO of Israeli startup ViewScore. Consumers don’t want to spend days – or even weeks – searching through reviews of dozens of products to find the best one. But they do like the idea of expert review input – and ViewScore allows them access to hundreds of review sites, with the ViewScore site’s engine ferreting through as many as 1,500 expert review sites, searching, digesting, and regurgitating each site’s score for a product, and then presenting you – the consumer – with the overall score, based on nearly all the expert reviews available on the type of product you’re seeking.

“Many sites offer consumers the ability to post reviews, and some sites, like Amazon, generate large volumes of response,” says Zach. “But even though many knowledgeable people post reviews at Amazon, it’s impossible to base a purchase solely on the reviews, because many of them are not necessarily about the product, but about issues like service, delivery, etc. And, many of the reviewers don’t even necessarily own the product,” he says.

Consumers can rely on expert reviews – but, says Zach, there are too many such reviews out there. “Our search engine, built on natural language technology, parses as many as 1,500 expert review sites, depending on the product, looking for phrases, adjectives, and other indications of the reviewer’s opinion of a product, based on the criteria that a consumer considers important. We analyze each site and quantify each review with a score – and then present the consumer with a grand total score. Instead of spending days or weeks reading reviews, ViewScore reads the reviews for the consumer  – and presents the information in an elegant, concise format,” he says. ViewScore has patented its engine, the only one around, says Zach, that does such  automatic objective review analysis.

Consumers have taken to ViewScore’s system – and so, perhaps surprisingly, have manufacturers and online retail stores, which have partnered with Zach to set up a white-label version of the engine at their own sites. “For retailers, it’s a great program, because they get to retain their customer base on site by providing all the information consumers need to make a decision ‘in-house.’” A number of retail sites have already installed the ViewScore product – as has Korean giant LG, which put a version of the engine on its cell phone information site.

While ViewScore seems to be one of those “how come they didn’t think of that before” ideas, Zach says that it takes effort to look at the “big picture” – and that sometimes, the big idea only comes to you through a “revelation” you receive. In ViewScore’s case, the breakthrough came when one of the principals of the company needed to find a particular item to help him with a health issue; the man trawled professional and personal reviews on the web for two weeks before throwing up his hands in frustration, telling himself there must be a better way. And now, says Zach, “thanks to ViewScore, there is.”

It’s not an easy club to get into – and so far, only one Israeli company has made the cut. Pageonce, billed as the first “Personal Internet Assistant,” now has an iPhone/iTouch application, called iOnce – as of today, the only Israeli-developed application in the App store, the company [...]]]> Getting into the iPhone App Store is a big deal; not everyone is admitted. There are  currently about 1,000 applications in the App Store – more than double the number offered when it first opened on July 11 – but Apple still intends to keep things under control, admitting only “quality” applications.

It’s not an easy club to get into – and so far, only one Israeli company has made the cut. Pageonce, billed as the first “Personal Internet Assistant,” now has an iPhone/iTouch application, called iOnce – as of today, the only Israeli-developed application in the App store, the company says. Within 48 hours of its release in the App Store on July 17, iOnce was among the top five applications in the Productivity category, up there with Last.fm, Twitter, and Paypal.

Accolades are actually nothing new for Pageonce. The company, which does development in Kfar Sava and has an office in California as well, was recently selected as one of 15 most promising companies  the California-Israel Chamber of Commerce, an organization dedicated to helping promising Israeli start-ups get access to the resources and help available in the Silicon Valley, utilizing its connections to get companies it works with in the front door with investors, the computer press and other key players who can help grow a company.
Pageomce on the web, and iOnce on the iPhone, aggregates all your account information, for all sites you get date from or send information to on the web. E-mail, social networks, airline miles, bank and credit card accounts – basically, any information you access through individual login account pages can be accessed directly through Pageonce, with the same or better level of security as at each service’s home site. Pageonce/iOnce users can currently log into thousands of web services through the application, with more being added all the time. You access the sites with whatever connection method the iPhone is using – GPRS or Wifi – at the time.

That kind of productivity is why the iOnce iPhone application has proven so popular, says Pageonce CEO Guy Goldstein. “Our iOnce application turns the iPhone into a true productivity tool. Many of the services you can access through iOnce don’t even have an iPhone application of their own, so there is no way to get to them on the device. And for those that do have an application, iOnce provides a single, easy to use and organized interface for all your data.” The convenience and ease of use is driving downloads for an application that does exactly what the majority of iPhone users want. “It turns out that financial data, saving money, and keeping track of accounts and miles are what most iPhone users are most interested in doing with their devices,” says Pageonce founder and COO Ahikam Kaufman, citing polls by organizations that track iPhone use. Over 20% of users of those who have downloaded the app (the number should be well over 100,000 by the time this is printed) use iOnce every day; so far, they have connected to over 3 million web pages.

And PageOnce/iOnce does more than just present data; it helps you manage it. “Let’s say you have a bill coming up,” Goldstein says. “The application can provide you with alerts in advance, reminding you to pay it on time and avoid late charges.” You get all your e-mail from different accounts in one place, ensuring you don’t miss important messages, even if a correspondent uses a “non-standard” address. If you want to, you can get notified every time account data changes – like changes to your travel itinerary, eBay bid results and status, Fedex or UPS package delivery updates, etc. – information you often need in an instant, but would take you 15 minutes or more to access from your PC – or forever from a mobile device.

Of course, security is a major issue for an application like this, but Goldstein and Kaufman have that covered, too. Pageonce employs military-level security and is certified by TRUSTe, McAfee Hacker Safe and VeriSign. Users can actually increase their Internet and mobile security by assigning different usernames and passwords to each of their accounts and simply managing them all directly from the application. What if you lose your phone? No worries (other than getting a replacement!); the device itself does not contain any personal data, and you can easily  disable remote logins from your iPhone. or even destroy your Pageonce account by logging into the site on a PC.

The buzz about Pageonce on the web has been very positive – and don’t forget, the App Store isn’t a club just anyone can join.  “We are very excited to be part of the Apple App Store and to offer our service in a mobile capacity to the millions of consumers who use the iPhone and iPod touch on a daily basis,” Goldstein says – and given the exclusivity of the club, you know he means it.

Mobixell enables quick, efficient, and unobtrusive delivery of video content to cellphones – the exact thing that advertisers are interested in. And the company’s main efforts, [...]]]> Mobixell may be Israel’s biggest little secret in the country’s mobile phone industry, a pioneer in the newish cellphone advertising industry: The company recently celebrated the occasion of its 500 millionth user of the technology it supplies to 300 cell phone service providers/mobile operators worldwide. For a company barely eight years old, that’s a lot of users – and it goes to show how important Mobixell’s products are to advertisers in the world of cellphones.

Mobixell enables quick, efficient, and unobtrusive delivery of video content to cellphones – the exact thing that advertisers are interested in. And the company’s main efforts, says CEO Amir Aharoni, is to ensure that video streamed to cellphones don’t bog down the network, and that the user experience is the best possible for everyone, regardless of which device they are using. Mobixells technology can deliver the video goods on any device, says Aharoni, including those using low bandwidth GPRS networks.

Such optimization is essential for customers, according to a recent study conducted by Mobixell; if the network is down for even a couple of minutes, they will get frustrated and quit using the service.  As a result, Mobixell’s technology is especially valued among  cellphone service providers who are trying to encourage advertisers to support services for consumers. With Mobixell, service providers can be sure that the video, MMS, audio, or multimedia files they send out to users look and act the same regardless of device, and that they are delivered with as little impact on the network as possible, to ensure that things keep running smoothly.

Lest you think that ad-watching on a cellphone is a minor issue, you are way behind the times, says Aharoni. “The cellphone is quickly becoming the main communication device for users, to speak to friends and colleagues, listen to music, and watch video.” The iPhone is the prime example of this development, and with the success of the Apple device, a whole slew of iPhone wannabes is in the pipeline, as other manufacturers seek to grab a piece of the “converged device” market.

And as more services become available, Aharoni says, there will be increased pressure from customers to get more services, without paying more money. “Watching downloaded TV programs and video on cellphones and similar devices is already a reality, and it’s just a matter of time before streaming video is available for most users. Such services cost money, but consumers are too used to the advertiser-supported model to pay for services.” And while customers may display patience while programs stream to their devices – at least to some extent – they will show no such consideration for ads, which are paying for their viewing experience.

The standardization of the user experience is important to advertisers as well, in order to ensure that their ads are as effective as they expect them to be. In order for advertisers to be willing to pay for their advertising services, they need to be assured that their message will get through, regardless of the medium. So, besides engineering groundbreaking compression techniques that will allow streaming of superior quality video,  Mobixell is working with service providers and advertisers through the Mobile Marketing Association, whose 650 members, consisting of ad  agencies, advertisers, hand held device manufacturers, carriers and operators, retailers, software providers and service providers are all working on those standards.

Anticipating strong growth in the still fledgling mobile ad industry, Mobixell recently successfully closed a $6 million round of funding, it’s fourth; so far, the Ra’anana-based company has raised $29 million. Aharoni says that Mobixell is ahead of the curve, and that the company will be at the side of its customers as the business cellphone advertising takes off. “From our close cooperation with our customers, we understood their need for an efficient way to optimize their current multimedia offerings that can also grow to meet their future needs,” Aharoni, CEO says “We will continue to work hand-in-hand with our customers to ensure their ability to provide superior mobile multimedia experience.”