Wireless V2X technology developed in Israel alerts motorists and two-wheel vehicle riders to each other’s presence.
An affordable device that alerts cyclists and scooter riders to the danger of unseen motorists could prevent many accidents globally, says Israel-based Autotalks.
The company uses V2X (vehicle-to-everything) technology to connect two-wheelers with other road users and warn them of each other’s presence.
The device, called ZooZ 2, gives a visual warning to two-wheel riders if a vehicle is approaching an intersection and could hit them. It also alerts them to drivers indicating a right turn who may be in their blind spot, and cars that jump a red light.
Drivers who have the device are likewise alerted to the two-wheeler. ZooZ 2 uses wireless technology so it can reliably detect two-wheelers even if the line of sight is obstructed.
The company says three quarters of bike and scooter accidents are caused by drivers failing to notice the two-wheeler – and it’s almost always the two-wheeler that comes off worse.
“Autotalks regards all road accidents as preventable, and those accidents involving bikes and scooters deserve special attention,” said founder and CTO Onn Haran.
“We’re committed to making our new micromobility safety device available immediately in order to save the lives of two-wheeler riders around the globe.”
Cyclists and scooter riders fit the device to their handlebars at a cost of $50 to $100 or it can come integrated on high-end models. ZooZ 2 currently communicates only with the 10% of cars that are V2X-enabled, but the technology is to be included in most new vehicles launched in 2025/26.
The first version of the ZooZ micromobility device was launched in September 2021. Autotalks says the updated version is undergoing validation tests by four manufacturers of bikes or their components, and by two vehicle manufacturers.
Autotalks showcased the ZooZ 2 device last week at the Velo-City Conference, the world cycling summit, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The plug-and-play device uses software provided by US-based V2X specialist Commsignia and has been tested successfully by the European consortium Project SECUR (Safety Enhancement through Connected Users on the Road).
Autotalks has already produced similar technology for motorcycles and says the first motorcycle manufacturer will incorporate it into mass-produced models in Europe in 2024.
These Israeli companies use mobile phones to gather and/or transmit health data and keep tabs on chronic conditions.
Social entrepreneur Ariel Beery and optics expert David Levitz had the inspiration to use the built-in camera of a smartphone to screen for cervical cancer — the fourth most common cancer affecting women globally and the second most common cancer for women in low-resource settings.
“More than five billion people around the world have access to mobile phones, but not to a physician,” Beery told ISRAEL21c in 2014, when the prototype was being piloted in five countries.
“We can do what a $100,000 device can do on a mobile phone, with 10 times better magnification than using just the naked eye, raising diagnostic accuracy significantly.”
Today, the EVA point-of-care device from MobileODT is used by primary care providers in 30-plus countries to conduct specialist-level visual screenings for thousands of women.
Ariel Beery, general partner of CoVelocity Health. Photo by Erin Kopelow
“MobileODT was the first company to build an FDA Class 2 medical device — a regulated medical device that replaces an existing medical system — around a mobile phone,” says former MobileODT CEO Beery, now general partner at CoVelocity Health, a strategic commercialization partner for medical technologies.
Since then, many other companies have harnessed the mobile phone – either to help healthcare professionals gather data (as with MobileODT) or to help patients transmit data from home to the practitioner and facilitate communication during a remote exam.
“There are a number of reasons why mobile phones make sense to be the core platform for a medical device,” says Beery.
“The first one is that every single person on the planet knows how to use one. And that is so important, because training and onboarding for a medical device is very difficult. When you have something based on a mobile phone platform, it’s relatively easy for the practitioner to watch a few tutorials and very quickly start using the device. That’s not the case with anything else, and it’s super important because then you can expand into rural areas and low-resource settings efficiently.”
There are other advantages of using smartphones for healthcare.
“From a regulatory perspective, most mobile phones in the market have received both electrical testing and broadcast certificates. Wi-Fi is intermittent around the world, but when you have a SIM card and a device that will be connected or integrated with medical information systems, a mobile phone shortcuts a whole host of regulation and registration — things that are really hard and expensive to do,” Beery adds. “For any [medical] device that requires communication, mobile phones already have all that already baked in.”
Below are descriptions of 13 companies using the smartphone as a basis or adjunct for smart healthcare.
MobileODT
Photo of the EVA system courtesy of MobileODT
Beery and Levitz originally envisioned EVA as a colposcope addon for the healthcare practitioner’s own phone. The current version instead has a dedicated Samsung J530 built in for all-in-one visualization, documentation and teleconsultation.
“We learned that there’s a big difference between things that assist a health worker in decision-making or communication functions, where using their own mobile phone makes sense; and information-gathering or diagnostic functions, in which case a dedicated mobile phone makes sense,” Beery explains.
“Diagnostic functions require your device to touch the patient. That brings up issues of security and sterilization. Also, a dedicated phone doesn’t have the same wear and tear and memory issues that you have with someone’s personal phone and doesn’t conflict with their images and WhatsApp and what have you.”
The EVA product line now includes separate devices for cervical cancer screening, cervical examination and sexual assault forensics. It’s also used to train clinicians in colposcopy; telecolposcopy or remote colposcopy.
Binah.ai
Remotely or onsite, Binah.ai’s video-based solution provides medical-grade vital signs measurements — heart rate, heart rate variability, mental stress level, oxygen saturation, respiration rate and more — within 2 minutes via a video of the patient’s upper cheek taken with a smartphone, tablet or laptop.
The signal processing and AI technology compensates for motion and imperfect lighting, and supports any age, gender and skin color. It can even detect subtle changes that might otherwise go unnoticed. Binah.ai works with healthcare, insurance and wellness industries in several countries.
Binah.ai is headquartered in Ramat Gan with offices in Maryland and Tokyo.
Healthy.io
This Tel Aviv-based startup, founded in 2013, leverages the image-processing capability of any smartphone camera for four at-home Minuteful medical tests – kidney function, wound management, urinary tract infection and urinalysis — whose results are transmitted to the clinician instantly.
Healthy.io’s partners in the US and UK include, among others, the National Kidney Foundation, the National Health Service, Modality and the Boots chain. The company recently acquired its American competitor, Inui Health, for $9 million.
K Health
K Health, billed as “healthcare without the system,” provides 24/7 phone access to board-certified doctors in 48 US states for $29 per month (no insurance necessary), where it has some 6 million users. The entire intake process is done on the smartphone, and users text K Health when they are free for a consult.
K Health provides 24/7 access to physicians as well as a free symptom checker. Photo courtesy of K Health
Members can download a free AI-powered symptom-checker app and obtain on-the-go prescriptions and refills. Primary care, urgent care, mental health and pediatric care (as well as Covid-related services) are all included. K Health is based in New York with development offices in Tel Aviv.
Sweetch
Sweetch provides a personalized digital coach for preventing and managing chronic diseases. Image: screenshot
Sweetch is a mobile based digital coach providing personalized recommendations for preventing and managing chronic conditions, generated from analysis of millions of datapoints on the individual’s smartphone and other connected devices.
In addition to the Sweetch app, the technology is available as a white-label app or as an SDK to be integrated within an existing app. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Sweetch is used in countries across the world.
Montfort
Montfort bridges technology and neurology, turning any standard smartphone into a personalized neurological medical testing device.
Using smartphone sensors and AI, Montfort’s EncephaLog app provides FDA-cleared digital neurological tests for early diagnosis of conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, anxiety, depression, post-Covid-19 neurological symptoms and more.
In the app, patients see the specific tests prescribed with reminders about when to take the tests and instructions in the patient’s preferred language. Montfort is used in more than 10 countries.
The tests measure parameters in three dimensions — motor (such as balance, gait, tremor), cognitive (memory, response time, pattern recognition) and mood indicators. It merges those measures with a fourth dimension of physiological records (genetics, brain scans, data from wearable devices) for a holistic picture.
Nonagon
Nonagon, backed by Phillips and Teva, has FDA and CE approval for its smartphone-based telemedicine device.
Four embedded sensors interface with the user’s smartphone to provide readings of nine common tests required for primary medical care: a stethoscope check (lung, heart and bowel sounds), otoscopy of the ear, oximeter (pulse rate and saturation), thermometer (body temperature), and a throat and skin test that uses the smartphone’s camera.
The device works with patients as young as two years old. The clinical data is sent in real time to the physician, enabling near immediate diagnosis, referral or prescription. Formerly known as MyHomeDoc, Nonagon is based in Caesarea with offices in New York.
TytoCare
This company’s award-winning TytoHome remote exam device ties in with the user’s and physician’s iOS or Android smartphone (or other device) via an app that allows the practitioner to control and guide the entire exam in real time.
For example, the clinician can take control of the stethoscope adapter to listen to lung and heart sounds or use the otoscope adapter to check ears for infection. After confirming a diagnosis, the clinician can send further instructions or a prescription.
OneStep
Photo courtesy of OneStep
OneStep of Tel Aviv developed an app-based physical therapy platform providing comprehensive gait analysis using only smartphone sensors.
The user needs nothing more than a smartphone nearby while doing the prescribed exercises. The app gives a detailed assessment of walking and overall mobility and allows physical therapists to communicate and provide effective treatment to patients 24/7.
Lumen
Lumen’s handheld device allows users to analyze and monitor their metabolism with their smartphone. It reveals the body’s current source of energy — fats or carbs — on a scale of 1 to 5, based on the respiratory exchange ratio.
Image courtesy of Lumen
The score helps users adjust their daily diet and physical activities accordingly: Low-carb days decrease the insulin spike, improving insulin sensitivity and enhancing mitochondrial function, while high-carb days ensure the body’s ability to use carbs for energy and keep hormones in balance.
MindReset
This app built on eye-tracking technology from Jerusalem-based Umoove helps thousands of users “reset” their response to depression, trauma, anxiety, stress and other emotional triggers.
Image courtesy of MindReset
An audio guide takes the user through each daily two-minute session of a 10-day program tailored to specific conditions. The eye tracker on the phone’s camera detects patterns in eye movement that indicate a stress trigger. Users are directed to do certain tasks with their eyes that interrupt the pattern and thus create a therapeutic effect by clearing the triggers.
The unique method behind the app was published last November in the journal Frontiers.
Yitzi Kempinski, founder-CEO of Umoove and CTO of MindReset, says results are so encouraging that the company is researching other ways people can use the app, such as for work burnout or emotional barriers to learning.
Neuralight
Using ocular metric data captured with a standard webcam or smartphone, this Tel Aviv- and Texas-based startup is building an AI-driven platform to accelerate and improve drug development and patient monitoring, as well as introduce precision care for patients with neurological disorders.
A physician records a five-minute video of a patient’s eye movements. Neuralight’s imaging tools clean up the video, then artificial intelligence and machine learning decipher what’s behind the eye movements.
The concept is based on scientific studies over the past 20 years showing correlations between various oculometric measures and the neurological status of patients suffering from a range of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders.
Cordio Medical
Cordio Medical’s HearO technology can sense fluid accumulation related to congestive heart failure through a patient’s speech and send an alert. This noninvasive monitoring solution is based on true speech signal processing augmented with machine learning.
The user speaks into a smartphone app whose algorithms allow near real-time monitoring and early detection of condition deterioration. The system is patient-tailored, constantly learning the patient’s voice. HearO noninvasively.
The company recently raised $18 million and aims to enter the US market in 2024.
Israeli researchers from the Technion are developing a solution that addresses the shortages in seasonal harvesters: robots that pick fruit for us.
Throughout history, early summer has often signaled the time to harvest. Harvesting, of course, has evolved considerably. As opposed to ancient times when mobilizing the whole community was necessary to fully harvest grain, there are sophisticated machines nowadays run by just a few individual operators that quickly navigate through fields and efficiently process many acres at a time.
However, in the case of fruits, there is still a need for a great deal of manual labor throughout the harvesting process today, but workers are in short supply. The farming labor and resource shortage is reported in many countries across the world including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and Brazil. Unharvested produce leads to a loss of food quality and spurs enormous economic losses, a fact that will become more evident and problematic as the world population continues to increase.
In a new Israeli study, researchers from the Technion developed a ground mobile robot that could drastically advance fruit agriculture and harvesting. The robot, whose development was led by Associate Professor Amir Degani from the Technion’s Environmental, Water, and Agriculture Engineering Department, will have the capability to use one or multiple small-sized drones to perform the operations required in orchards much more accurately and cheaper than the methods used by farmers today.
The study was recently presented at the “Water and Environmental Engineering in the Face of Climate Change” conference of the Environmental, Water, and Agriculture Engineering Department at the Technion’s Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
The Need for Better Fruit-Picking Robotics
The gap between the number of seasonal laborers and the volume of work is expected to significantly expand as the world population continues to grow. By 2050 there are expected to be more than 9 billion people in the world, and in order to feed them all it will be necessary to increase the volume of food production anywhere from 35-60 percent (unless the whole world switches to a plant-based diet).
One might expect though that with such a highly populated world there would be no shortage of working personnel, but sadly this is not the case.
“People have been moving from villages to cities for decades – and fewer people want to engage in manual labor,” Degani explains. “It’s seen in construction and agriculture, and it happens everywhere – including in countries with very large populations, like India and China. In India, for example, harvesting coconut is a very important task – but fewer and fewer people want to work in that field.”
According to him, the problem also exists in Israel. “As in many Western countries, there are quite a few years in Israel where apples fall to the ground because no one is there to pick them in time.”
Degani believes the solution to these problems lies in robots that know how to pick fruits.
“Just as automation has solved many of the problems that plagued field crops, like using machines such as combine harvesters, once we adapt this strategy to plantations farmers will be able to better streamline and reduce the uncertainty that currently surrounds the acquisition of skilled seasonal labor for specific times of the year,” he says.
It is important to note that automating harvests should be approached differently than those used for field crops, which involve rough, large, and overly expensive machines.
“In field crops, massive harvesting is carried out all over the area––usually indiscriminately,” says Degani. “Picking edible fruit should be gentle and selective. The fruits should be picked one by one and handled carefully.”
Interestingly, he claims that the robotic arms currently used in factories, which have a large range of motion and accurate precision capabilities that humans can only dream of, are not suitable for the task.
“Although these robotic arms know how to perform a pre-planned operation, their sensing and decision making capabilities are limited and are not suitable for agriculture,” he says. “Agriculture is a more difficult world. Agriculture takes place in an uncertain environment with fluctuating changes in light and outdoor conditions, so the robot must have complex sensing and decision making capabilities.” According to him, the robot should not be too expensive of an alternative because otherwise many farmers will not be able to afford it.
Call in Air Support
Degani and his team began to approach the challenge of the harvesting robot’s development by first addressing its maneuverability in the orchard, a task more complicated than it sounds.
“In order for the robot to patrol and weave through all the trees and detect pests or ripe apples, for example, it must know where it exactly is,” Degani explains. The orchard environment is relatively homogeneous from a ground point of view, with most of the trees looking about the same and the GPS reception not being particularly reliable.
This obstacle gave rise to the idea of establishing a connection between a ground mobile robot and a drone. The researchers found that when utilizing the perspective of a low-flying drone, the top-view observation of the orchard provides a unique signature of every tree formed by the shape of its canopy. The first study on the subject was published in the robotics and automation section of the IEEE magazine.
Currently, researchers are working on additional ways in which the farming robot can use small drones to perform the operations required for harvesting orchards. First, they demonstrated that a drone could hover around a tree, creating a detailed three-dimensional image of each of the trees in the area. These are needed to make the harvesting process more efficient and reflect more modern model of precision agriculture.
“The meaning of ‘precision agriculture’ is that instead of making decisions on issues relating to things like fertilization, irrigation, thinning, pest management, or harvesting at the entire field level, we will look at the agricultural plot at a higher resolution and make such decisions down to the individual tree level,” explains Degani.
This will make it possible to increase the volume of produce, by providing the best conditions for each individual tree, and beyond that, save the use of resources such as water, fertilizer, and potentially dangerous pesticides.
Degani believes the solution lies in the capabilities of a ground mobile robot that knows how to navigate around the wood, perform precise mechanical operations, and even pollinate flowers––another separate project currently under development in the laboratory.
A Shift From Human to Robot?
Today, Degani’s studies are in the prototype stage, and they demonstrate possibilities for future development. In any case, there are already several automation attempts in the fruit harvesting industry represented by Israeli companies such as FFRobotics, a robot equipped with the ability to emulate human hand-picking, and Tevel Aerobotics Technologies, which developed a flying harvester that is scheduled to enter its pilot phase in the coming year.
Beyond that, not only is the identity of the harvester expected to shift from human to robot – but the structure of the orchard itself is also speculated to change.
“The way we engineer and grow trees will change, and they will be designed in a way that is right for robotic harvesting,” Degani explains. “Even today you can see in the world apple orchards that look almost like a two-dimensional wall on which fruit grows. This is not genetic engineering but mechanical engineering operations designed to make the orchard grow as efficiently as possible.” The new orchard structure allows for denser planting and is designed to enable easier harvesting for both humans and robots alike. Studies are currently underway to determine the most efficient configuration, in preparation for an era in which robots will enter the agricultural landscape.
In the end, according to Degani, everything is aimed at becoming more efficient simply because we have no other choice.
“Even in modern agriculture, the farmer will be very important, but he will need much fewer working hands,” he says. “Like quite a few things, the data will be at the center, to help him make informed decisions, and the robots will carry out the tasks in the field. This is what will direct the efficiency so that we can reach a sufficient crop target that will feed all humans,” he says.
“Because there will be less land, less resources, and less manpower over time, there is a need to find a solution. Otherwise, fruits like apples will be accessible only to the very rich,” Degani concludes.
The study is related to a problem in AI and robotics called autonomous decision-making under uncertainty.
Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology found a way to simplify decision-making and problem-solving under uncertainty in a way that reduces the amount of information computers need to analyze.
A new peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Robotics Research, led by Prof. Vadim Indelman, who heads the Autonomous Navigation and Perception Lab (ANPL) at Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, and Khen Elimelech, shows the feasibility of reducing the amount of time for computers to process information without compromising the success of completing a function.
“We demonstrate that we can significantly reduce computation time, without harming the successful execution of the task,” the researchers said. “We also demonstrate that computation efforts can be reduced even further if we accept a certain loss in performance loss that our approach can evaluate online. In an age of self-driving cars and other robots, this is an approach likely to enable autonomous online decision making in challenging scenarios, reduce response times, and achieve considerable savings in the cost of hardware and other resources.”
The study is related to a problem in AI and robotics called autonomous decision-making under uncertainty, which concerns the capability of AIs to complete tasks reliably and autonomously over time in an unpredictable environment.
Technion noted that autonomous agents often do not have access to the variables related to a particular problem and instead function based on a “belief” based on probability models and measurements.
Illustrative image of AI. (credit: PIXABAY)
Belief space planning
A major area of research in the new study was computationally efficient decision-making under these conditions, called belief space planning. In order to solve this problem, an AI must weigh the costs and benefits of a potential action, which requires the researchers to predict how the “belief” will change over time.
The findings may help researchers solve decision-making problems using simplification and show that there are ways to save considerable amounts of computation time without a loss of accuracy.
Forsight Raised $10 million in seed funding in March 2021.
Israeli medtech startup ForSight Robotics is developing a surgical robotic platform to deliver what it describes as high precision and cost-effective vision-saving surgery. Forsight just raised $55 million in a Series A round of funding led by The Adani Group alongside existing investors Eclipse Ventures and Mithril Capital.
Founded in 2020 CEO Daniel Glozman, Ph.D., Joseph Nathan, M.D. and Moshe Shoham, Ph.D, Forsight declares that its mission is to transform the practice of ophthalmic surgery through a next generation robotic platform combining “state of the art robotic microsurgical technology, advanced visualization technologies, and next generation cognitive computing methods.”
Joseph Nathan previously directed healthcare commercialization at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, where he forged partnerships worth over $1 billion with global pharmaceutical and med-tech companies. Daniel Glozman has specialized in robotics for medical applications for over 20 years, heading R&D at Medtronic Ventor Technologies, Magenta Medical, Diagnostic Robotics, and Guide-X — which he also founded.
Israeli medical professionals have been behind many new procedures to save people’s vision over the years. Losing your vision is one of the most frightening things which can happen to people. Israeli startup OrCam produces new technology for the blind and other people with visual deficiencies. Its MyEye is wearable technology that can give eyesight to the blind. But it does not heal them.
Forsight Robotics, however, tries to heal blindness. The company explains that many of the leading causes of blindness worldwide can be prevented through timely surgical procedures. Ophthalmic microsurgery is complex and challenging, requiring many years to master, and there is a shortage of trained ophthalmic surgeons to meet the demand worldwide. Creation of a robotic surgical platform will allow one to deliver consistent excellent results while scaling up ophthalmic surgery to solve the problem of preventable blindness worldwide.
“These are exciting times that will enable the transformation of ophthalmic surgery from art to science,” Forsight’s Dr. Joseph Nathan once declared.
“We are thrilled to bring robotics into the world of ophthalmic surgery,” Dr. Glozman once said. “Our goal is to democratize this highly sophisticated procedure, enabling patients around the world to easily access the treatment that can restore their vision.”
What if the cracked screen of your mobile phone or the solar panels providing energy to a satellite could self-repair?
These kinds of robots and electronics are not only a matter of science fiction — where self-aware machines can heal themselves — but of real interest for scientists and technology developers. Researchers from Technion, say self-repairing electronics may be possible and have the tech to prove it.
As the use of technology intensifies, electronics that have longer life spans become more valuable and essential for critical operations. The technology we use every day — smartphones, laptops, or tablets — has a very limited life span. These short life cycles are mostly due to electronic damage and normal degradation of electronic parts, including lithium batteries. From the government to the private tech industry, electronic damage can have significant consequences. For example, a study from the Electrostatic Discharge Association estimated that industries could lose up to £4 billion per year due to electrostatic electronic damage alone. By 2022, with an ever-expanding global cloud powered by endless servers, the risks are even higher.
Smoke, fire, water, dust, corrosion, temperature variations, radiation, mechanical shock, impact, contact failure, and thermal stress … there are numerous ways in which electronics can be damaged (via LiveWire). On the other hand, other technologies like NASA space technology or commercial satellites, which cannot be accessed for maintenance or repairs, require longer life spans but still depend on electronics susceptible to damage. Self-healing electronics, while still a dream, could become the “holy tech grail.”
A research group led by Professor Yehonadav Bekenstein from the Faculty of Materials Sciences and Engineering and the Solid-State Institute at Technion was studying perovskite nanoparticles for their potential to provide a green alternative to toxic lead materials used heavily in electronics. In doing so, they found something unexpected.
The team found on a microscopic level that the nanocrystals moved a hole (damage) through the areas of a structure to self-heal. Surprised by this, the researchers drew up a code to analyze microscopic videos and understand the dynamics and movements within the crystal. The researchers realized that the damaged area, or hole, formed on the surface of the nanoparticles, then moved to energetically stable areas inside, and was finally “spontaneously ejected” out. Researchers explained that through this self-healing process, the nanocrystals essentially reverted back to being undamaged (per Technion).
Researchers at the Technion believe that this discovery is a key step toward understanding the processes by which these nanoparticles can heal themselves. The team also thinks that perovskite nanoparticles should be used in solar panels and other electronic devices.
Attendees get to experience virtual flights using an in-flight simulator of the personal electric plane, which should go on the market in 2024.
In October 2021, ISRAEL21c reported that an Israeli flying car startup had started taking pre-orders for its personal electric plane (an eVTOL, short for “vertical takeoff and landing,” vehicle).
Now AIR, the company behind this latest and greatest way to commute to work, has unveiled the first full-scale prototype of its inaugural vehicle. The company took the wraps off its high-flying product at the Kentucky Derby.
Attendees were able to sit inside the aircraft and experience “virtual flight” using a simulator. The craft didn’t actually take off and fly, though.
Also at the Derby launch, AIR announced a new partnership with Aeroauto to establish a UAM (an “urban air mobility” vehicle) showroom and dealership in Florida.
A simulation of the AIR ONE in flight. Photo courtesy of AIR
“People have been dreaming of these incredible machines for decades,” notes Sean Borman, CEO of Aeroauto. “It is a great honor to [bring] an international manufacturer to North America as an AIR Brand Ambassador, while becoming their North American Flagship retailer for sales, service, and customer training center.”
Despite the excitement, the company still has plenty of work left to do. AIR is currently preparing to begin “hover testing” and is working with the FAA to formalize its application to operate flying cars in the US. Customer deliveries are still expected by 2024 – a couple of years wait but years ahead of the competition.
So far, AIR has completed a successful drop test and has finalized the first stage of the power and communication system integration on the craft. The company’s flagship eVTOL, the AIR ONE, has a number of unique features, including foldable wings and retracting landing gear that allow it to fit inside an average suburban garage.
Rani Plaut, CEO of AIR. Photo courtesy of AIR
The AIR ONE is an electric battery-powered, fixed-wing, two-person craft propelled by eight vertical lift rotors. It has a range of 110 miles on a single charge at speeds up to 150 mph. It can carry a maximum payload of 440 pounds and charges up in less than an hour. The floor of this innovative eVTOL is partially made of glass – great for passing the time on the way to work.
AIR CEO Rani Plaut told ISRAEL21c last year that the company’s goal is “to make something as easy as a car with a practical range and a practical price. If we can do that, I think we can make a real difference.”
Other Israeli startups working on flying cars include Urban Aeronautics, Eviation, Pentaxi and Flytrex.
Electreon demonstrates a prototype stretch of road to Italian ministers, company executives; luxury car firm Maserati expresses interest in installing tech too
Israeli company Electreon, whose technology is integrated into roads that recharge the batteries of electric vehicles as they travel on them, is on track to design a lane for shuttles and service vehicles at Bergamo Airport northwest of Milan, Italy, the company said in a statement.
The project was clinched Friday at an event that officially launched a one-kilometer (0.62 miles) recharging circuit that Electreon has been testing in Brescia, northern Italy, since November 2020.
The launch was attended by Italian ministers along with senior executives from vehicle, infrastructure, and tech companies.
Bergamo Airport staff members are to test their vehicles out on the prototype road, called Arena of the Future, and if all goes to plan, the airport will move toward a commercial agreement with Electreon to create an electric lane on the airport’s tarmac.
According to an Electreon press release, the luxury car company Maserati also said it wanted to try its e-vehicles out at the Arena, with a view to acquiring the technology at its plants.
The prototype road was built following the October 2020 signing of a memorandum of understanding between Electreon and the Italian toll road infrastructure company Societa’ di Progetto Brebemi SpA. The goal of the MOU is to integrate Electreon’s wireless electric road system into infrastructure projects in Italy.
Cutting the ribbon to officially open the Arena of the Future, a demonstration electric charging road created in Brescia, northern Italy, by Israeli start-up Electreon. (Electreon)
At Friday’s event, Francesco Bettoni, head of the holding company that administers the A35 toll road, known as BreBeMi, set out the company’s vision for integrating Electreon’s technology into a stretch of road from Bergamo to Turin.
Solar fields are to be built along the road to power the system renewably.
“Europe has clearly stated its goals for the transition to sustainable transportation. We are ready for the commercial phase of the Arena of the Future technology,” Bettoni said.
He added, “I’m pleased to say that there’s great interest in the technology and we’re getting inquiries from many local authorities who are interested in integrating the technology into intercity roads.”
Aimed at reducing air pollution, the electric road does away with the need for recharging stations. According to Electreon’s website, a system of copper coils is laid beneath the asphalt to transfer energy from the electricity grid to the road and to manage communication with approaching vehicles. Receivers are installed on the floor of the vehicles to transmit the energy directly to the engine and the battery while the vehicles are on the go. Communication with all management units and all registered vehicles is via cloud technology.
The system allows for smaller batteries on electric buses, releasing more room for passengers, utilizes existing roads, and saves time because vehicles do not have to stop to charge or refuel.
An electric bus and an electric Fiat 500 try out the circuit at Arena of the Future, a demonstration electric charging road created in Brescia, northern Italy, by Israeli start-up Electreon. (Electreon)
During Friday’s event, an electric Fiat 500 car driving at 84 kilometers (52 miles) per hour around the track started with a battery that was charged 22 percent and finished with a charge of 48%.
An IVECO bus driving at up to 60 kilometers (37 miles) per hour also finished with an increased charge.
Electreon has numerous projects across Europe and in the US.
In Israel, it is partnering with the city of Tel Aviv-Jaffa and the Dan Bus Company in a large-scale commercial deployment of its wireless charging infrastructure to power electric buses.
Last year, Electreon was one of four Israeli firms named to TIME magazine’s annual list of “100 Best Inventions.”
Israeli smart mobility company Innoviz Technologies, announced on Monday that it has been selected by one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers to become its direct supplier of LiDar remote sensing solutions across several brands.
The company has not yet disclosed the name of the manufacturer but claims the partnership will increase Innoviz’s forward-looking book order by $4 billion to $6.6 billion.
Founded in 2016, Innoviz develops LiDAR remote-sensing solutions for fully autonomous vehicles. LiDAR is an acronym for “light detection and ranging” and it is used to calculate the ranges of various surroundings by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. Innoviz’s flagship LiDAR system InnovizOne renders highly accurate real-time 3D images of the vehicle’s surroundings, providing enhanced perception capabilities that exceed that of human drivers.
“We are proud to deliver our outstanding InnovizTwo LiDAR and perception software as the direct supplier to support this new series production program,” said Innoviz CEO and co-founder Omer Keilaf. “Being selected by a large-scale multi-brand global vehicle maker is a significant catalyst for Innoviz and we expect this will affect the entire industry which has been waiting for a decision of this magnitude. We are expecting the scope of this deal to grow even further as additional car brands within the group adopt our platform. In addition, we anticipate more carmakers to follow this decision in their autonomous vehicle programs.”
Israel-born Johny Srouji, the senior vice president and arguably the most influential figure at Apple after the company’s CEO, lauds Israeli ingenuity as well as those working at the tech giant’s Haifa-based R&D center, where the company’s two state-of-the-art chips were developed
Two new Mac facilities, Apple Watch R&D, facial recognition, storage controllers. All these were created at Israel Apple’s R&D center which, next month, celebrates a decade of operations.
Johny Srouji, Apple vice president and the most senior Israeli executive in the global tech industry, tears away the center’s veil of secrecy, divulging how decisions are made at Apple and tells us about growing up in Haifa.
Apple vice president Johny Srouji (Photo: Apple)
The COVID pandemic has kept Srouji away from Israel for two and a half years – and he misses it. He misses his childhood home on Abbas Street near Wadi Nisnas in Haifa. He misses his extended family, one of the oldest in the city’s Christian Arab community. He misses the “amazing” Israeli food and the friends he’s made here over the years. He definitely misses the white, ultra-modern building on 12 Hamaskit Street in Herzliya, proudly displaying the famed Apple logo.
Srouji, 58, senior vice president of hardware technologies at Apple, is the world’s top Israeli tech executive and arguably the most influential figure at the company, second only to its CEO, Tim Cook. He holds a golden share in this building – the Israeli Apple R&D center. Steve Jobs himself, along with Tim Cook, decided to found the company’s first R&D center in Israel which had originally been proposed by Srouji and former Motorola executive Bob Mansfield, who had also worked extensively with Israelis.
Apple’s R&D center officially opened in March 2012, and next month it celebrates a decade of operations. “We employ the best of the best” says Srouji. “We’ve built a world class team and have made several acquisitions.
“What started with one employee – Aharon Aharon, Srouji’s lecturer at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology who, after being appointed CEO, tasked Srouji with turning the concept into reality – is now a vibrant center employing a staff of 1,800, taking credit for some of Apple’s most outstanding recent innovations.
Due to Apple’s famous culture of compartmentalization and secrecy, the Herzliya center’s exact fields of activity have over the years remained undisclosed, deliberately dropping vague hints, such as “There’s something Israeli in every Apple device”.
The Israeli R&D center’s extraordinary achievements over the past two COVID-filled years, have earned Apple unprecedented profits, and have helped propel the center’s value to almost three trillion dollars. In this time, cracks have formed in Apple’s famed wall of secrecy.
After years of the company using very general terms in interviews, in his spacious office at the Apple Park (the “spaceship campus”) in Cupertino, California, Srouji now tells us why he calls himself a “very proud father” of the Israeli center and how his personal role models in Israel and growing up in Haifa in the 1980s have shaped his life.
The jewel in Apple’s crown over the last two years – taking even the experts by surprise – are three new, strong, ultra-fast M1 Mac processors. Based on the technology that runs Apple’s smartphone processors (ARM), both fell under Srouji’s sole responsibility and have replaced the old Intel processors, which were unceremoniously discarded.
Last October, Apple unveiled their flagship M1 max and the M1 pro processors, providing the world’s best performance for personal computers. It can now be revealed that the two chips, already in use in the most powerful Macs, were developed, behind a veil of secrecy, in Israel.
“These are two very complicated chips. The M1 max has 57 billion transistors. Both were developed in Israel,” says Sarouji. “Building the chip, assimilating it, its physical design, validation [testing the behavior of the chip] – was all conducted in Israel. And they’re really great.”
“By no coincidence, the Max and the Pro, were launched at the same time as our competitor, Intel’s new Alder Lake Core 12 processor, which was also developed in Israel. So, the crème de la crème of the world’s computer processors are made in Israel.”
Apple’s flagship M1 processor (Photo: Apple )
They were developed during COVID. How did you overcome limitations posed by the pandemic?
“It was very challenging. We were past the research and development stage, and we were waiting for a chip to arrive for the validation stage – a long and comprehensive series of tests. Then suddenly COVID hit. It created enormous problems as we need physical access to the laboratory with several engineers in the same room. Nonetheless, the teams in Israel and the United States didn’t miss a single development stage.
“Time differences between Israel and America mean that we were already used to working remotely. We developed creative tools for remote-working even for the laboratories. I’m very proud of the devotion and sacrifice made by engineers both in Israel and in the United States. I worked with them on the chips, both and remotely and in person. The collaboration was truly inspiring.”
(Photo: Shutterstock)
I’m guessing that the center in Israel is responsible for more innovations over the past decade.
“I can’t talk about everything, but let me give a few examples. Let’s start with what’s already been announced: Every storage controller in every Apple product comes from Israel. It started before we opened the R&D center with the acquisition of Anobit – our first Israeli company,” he says.
“People store their memories and pictures on iPhones and iPads, so we wanted to speed up the storage access, cut down energy use while securing the memories for life, so that people won’t be losing pictures. Anobit had a very skilled team, experienced building storage controllers based on Flash memory (SSD). They built our storage controllers. Nine months after the acquisition, they’d already made the first storage controller that went into a Mac, which we’ve adapted for iPhones, iPads and other devices.
“A few years later, in Israel we acquired a very small team to develop WIFI and Bluetooth capability for the Apple Watch. We then decided that the watch’s electronic brain, the SOC would be developed in Israel, so the team in Herzliya built that too.”
Former CEO, Aharon Aharon, explained that the Apple Watch development was kept secret to such an extent that when it was launched, it came as a surprise even within the company. Aharon served as CEO until 2017, when he left to assume the role of CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority (previously known as the Office of the Chief Scientist).
He learned the culture of secrecy the hard way: “At the beginning it was difficult to recruit. Apple would open up something in Israel, but wouldn’t say what it was. At first, even I didn’t know what was going on in Israel,” says Aharon.
Rony Fried has been running the center since 2017, doing his best to operate beneath the radar.
Apple Watch 5 (Photo: Apple)
According to Srouji, “In 2013, we acquisitioned PrimeSense, specializing in camera depth sensors, the technology facilitating unlocking the iPhone using facial recognition (Face ID). Our developers are presently working on sophisticated machine learning and imaging solutions.”
“The core technology for Lidar (sensor determining ranges using laser reflection), which we integrated into iPhones and iPads is also from Israel. Cinematic Mode, focusing video, first used in the iPhone 13, is based on part of the same technology.”
Let’s get back to founding the center. Both you and Bob Mansfield were familiar with the Israeli mentality. Weren’t you concerned with the “It’ll be OK… ” mindset which is so different from the Apple DNA?
Srouji laughs… “I’m Israeli. I was born in Haifa. I’m very much aware of all of this. We had a number of reasons for thinking of Israel.”
“Firstly, Israel really is Start Up Nation. There are lots of ideas and creative innovations here. It’s heavily ingrained into the culture, industry and good universities. If you’re looking for a high concentration of talent and great engineers – this is the place to find them,” he says.
“Secondly, when we look for dedication, commitment and loyalty to the employer, Israel does very well.
“We’d created a base in Israel and then we started building on that, one step at a time. We gradually took on more assignments and, despite various obstacles, the teams executed them all.”
Former Apple CEO Aharon Aharon (Photo; PR)
Aharon adds that “It wasn’t easy. Altering habits took some time. It took six months to integrate Anobit which came from the Israeli Start-Up culture… At Apple, everything is planned and focused.”
Srouji has been in the United States for twenty years – with a two-year break – fourteen of those years with Apple. He’s married to Radha from Fassuta, a Christian Arab town in the Galilee, and the couple have three adult children. The family lives in the neighborhood of Almaden, near the Apple Park in Cupertino, California.
With his brother, he attended the École des Sœurs de Nazareth High School, a leading private school near his home in Haifa. Although there was no computer in his home on Abbas Street in the 1980s, Srouji completed both undergraduate and masters programs at the Technion with distinction.
He worked at the IBM plant in Haifa for three years before joining Intel in 1992. A 2015 profile article in Calcalist, quoted a former Intel colleague: “After only a week, we were enchanted by him. He’s an unusually modest, quiet, hardworking polite man, but also the type who’ll, with a big smile on his face, get up to help out. He was the perfect teammate, never acting superior, although he was clearly more talented that the rest of us.”
In 1999 Srouji relocated to Austin, Texas to work at the city’s Intel plant where he spent three years. In 2005, he returned to the United States to work at IBM. He joined Apple in 2008 shortly following the launch of the first iPhone. Jobs soon made the decision that would boost Srouji’s career: After 15 years of using Intel’s microchips in their devices, Apple would start developing their own.
The Apple A10 Fusion 64-bit chip (Photo: Apple)
Could you give me some idea of the extent of this project?
“It was a very important strategic decision. It usually takes three to four years to produce a microchip, bringing it from conception to the marketing stage. Microchip design is unforgiving. You’re not targeting what the market presently needs, but rather what will be happening years from now,” he says.
“In 2010, we decided in principle that for our software, we needed our own hardware, including our own chips. This is very much what Apple is about and we want to keep it that way. We want the best performance we can get, not to match our competitors but rather to achieve more.
“We understood that Apple could create the best processors, graphics, digital imaging processing for cameras, video simulation for video encoding as well as the best security – all on one chip. Launching the first independent iPhone chip in 2010, we felt we had a strong foundation. Eventually, we thought it was time we develop our own for chip for the Mac.”
From 2011, Srouji headed developing the processors for the first iPhone and iPad. In 2017, Apple revealed that that his annual salary had reached $24 million, second only to Angela Ahrendts, the company’s senior vice president of retail, and double that of Cook. In case you were concerned, Cook’s annual salary last year was $100 million.
In 2016, Bloomberg magazine ran a cover page article titled, “The most important Apple executive you’ve never heard of,” claiming that he saved the company in 2015 by managing to develop the processor for the iPad Pro six months ahead of schedule.
Various versions of Apple’s iPhone (Photo: Apple)
About schedules – the iPhone 12 was launched a month late due to supply problems resulting from COVID. The iPhone 13 was launched on time. How do you overcome supply chain problems and a global microchip shortage?
“We work with our own microchip manufacturers, such as TSMC in Taiwan producing 5 nanometer chips. We have a world class technology team working with them. Development, including verification, validation and mass production is all planned years ahead. Nothing’s left to the last minute,” he says.
“Despite supply shortages and the slight delay of the iPhone 12 launch, 2021 was one of Apple’s best years, with a revenue of $123 billion, with Apple shares increasing in value by 1,200% over the last decade.”
You mention the best engineers in Israel and the United States, but engineers are in short supply both in these countries and in Europe. How do you overcome this?
“This is true. We work tirelessly on this front,” he says.
“Firstly, both in Israel and America, we approach colleges and universities, helping them build study programs or supplying guest lecturers. We sometimes even provide them with our own engineers to teach certain lessons. We want students to be enthusiastic about the challenges of developing microchips. I think it’s the most exciting kind of work there is, but I’m biased.
“Secondly, there sometimes aren’t enough computer science or electrical engineering university graduates, but there are graduates in related fields such as physics and mathematics, so we train them, so that within a couple of years, they can become engineers at Apple,” he adds.
“Thirdly, Apple values include diversity and equal opportunities. In Israel, we’re training Ultra-Orthodox women and Arab engineers, encouraging them to integrate into the tech sector.”
iPad Air (Photo: Apple)
Are you happy with the number of Israeli Arab joining Apple in Israel?
“I’m always aiming for more, but looking at the numbers, it’s good. We can definitely strive to do better, but I think we’re working correctly. It’s very much part of what Apple is about – we want good, diverse talent.”
Don’t you feel you’re a bit late in virtual worlds such as Metaverse? Is Apple planning anything in virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR)?
“I can only say that we very feel that virtual and augmented reality are exciting and very important. Over a billion Apple devices on the market are ready for AR.”
What about the iPhone battery that hardly lasts the day?
“This is very complicated. When you design a battery, you want it to have the optimum energy within a given size, what we call ‘volumetric energy density.’ It also needs to last as long as possible, be secure and provide constant power supply,” he says.
“We need to think about the device and its electronics. The more energy it saves, the longer it lasts. How the energy is supplied from the battery to the phone, also matters. I have a team of great chemists addressing this issue.”
You can’t argue with success. Apple’s sales have never been better. Users, however, are saying that although the products are good, it’s “more of the same,” and that the magic from the Steve Jobs days has long gone, that it’s not exciting anymore.
Apple AirPods Pro (Photo: Shutterstock)
“I hope you’ll like our products. I believe we are creating that magic in every device we make. Let me give a few examples: Firstly – the AirPods, with their amazing sound quality and background noise cancellation.
“Secondly – the Apple Watch – just look at where we started and where we are now. Not only is it a wonderful watch, it’s also a great health device, measuring heart beats and ECG. It can be can used as a telephone and for making payments. We improve this device every year. I think that’s magic.
“Thirdly, what we’ve done with the M1 processor is magic. When we get this level of horsepower on a laptop or even a PC with great battery life, that’s magic. We’re also working on future technology and products. We really want to carry on surprising people, enrich their lives and make them happy.”
In February 2015, three years after opening the R&D center in Herzliya, the Apple CEO visited Israel. Srouji accompanied him, always trying to keep a low profile even when visiting then-President Reuven Rivlin, who exclaimed: “We are very proud of the Israeli that is one of the major figures in your company… we need five or six more Johnnies.” Cook responded: “If you find them, let me know where they all are.”
Tim Cook, Apple CEO (Photo: AP)
Do you think growing up in Israel has helped you in your career?
“I truly believe that the values we grow up with, that we bring to our adult lives along with the people from whom we learn, definitely affect our lives and careers. I was born in Haifa – a beautiful city with the Carmel and the beaches. Its real beauty, however, is its tolerance and human diversity. The city is home to a broad range of ethnic and religious groups, living in an unusual harmony. Growing up in this kind of environment, is part of who you are.
“I was also very lucky to be born in a city offering such good education. I went to an excellent school and then to the Technion. Again, I’m biased, but I think the Technion is a world class academic institution when it comes to engineering,” he says.
“In Israel I learnt a lot, especially how to think and approach difficult problems. Learning is important, but learning without in-depth thinking won’t take you far in life. You need both – how to think about and deal with things that you haven’t encountered before.
“What you learn from people you grow up with is also important. I had a lot of role models, both in Israel and America, but let’s stick to the role models in Israel: As a child, my first role model was my headmistress, an Irish nun. She was strict and meticulous, earning the respect of both pupils and staff. She’d enter a chaotic, noisy classroom, and suddenly the class would go quiet. This was simply out of our respect for her.
“My father, an artisan carpenter, who made foundry molds for metal casting, served as a further role model. He’d make large wooden molds into which molten liquid metal would be poured to make steel parts for the defense industry.
“He was the best in his profession and there were very few like him. The interesting part is that he charged less than he should, even when he challenged with particularly difficult, almost impossible tasks because he just wanted to do it. From him, I learnt about dedication and creativity,” he adds.
“In the 1980s, the Technion provided me with a further role model: I had a teacher, who was a Unix operating system genius. After hours, he headed his own independent data center at the Technion. His class was the hardest, so I challenged myself to do well in this class. I wanted to be like him. From him, I learnt about technical depth and how to truly devote yourself to something.
“My final role model is one of my first bosses. He understood people and could ‘read’ them after a single handshake. He was a great teambuilder and recruiter who knew how to push engineers to work their hardest. He was also an inspiring figure, a person you wanted to follow. From him, I learnt to surround myself with clever people and how to inspire and motivate others to do things they don’t think they can do.”
After twenty years in the United States, do you miss Israel?
“Naturally. I have lots of friends in Israel, and of course, my family. I wish I could come to Israel more often. COVID has meant that I travel less. And I obviously miss the food.”
