Israel’s News Blog Magazine: Daily Stories Video and Photos

On May 5th, 2008 Ron Arad will turn 50. His friends are throwing him a birthday party and after more then 21 years in captivity are wishing his return. Please remember him, that would be the best thing you can do! PASS THIS ON!

Please pass this on and visit RonArad.co.il

The Bank of Israel site was hacked yesterday by a hacker calling himself “The Moorish”. The Moors were black Muslim invaders of the middle ages (remember Morgan Freeman in “Robin Hood Prince of Thievs”?). “The Moorish” is allegedly associated with a group of Algerian hackers called Team DZ.

The hacker signs off by quoting Malcolm X: “I’m nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me.” and a link to a YouTube video featuring an armed uniformed movement. The flags being waved in the video bear the Muslim declaration of belief, the Shahada (disambiguation), in ornate lettering.

“As an anti-colonial Muslim, I fully support the armed resistance of the Palestinians, Iraqis and Lebanese against the US and Israel. I am serious about the liberation! By any means rendered necessary!”

“This is the only way by which oppressed people can emancipate themselves than from the Zionist and American oppressors…the oppressors have not conceded to non-violent measures; therefore, their victims have no commitment to non-violent resistance…”

Image: Ynet

The new version of Hooqs is out and let me tell you its fantastic. The new system still in Alpha allows users to create content channels viewable online and on mobile. Read the brief that appeared on their blog:

HooQs is a user centric service where users create and share media channels for mobile devices. Channels are created and edited online using the HooQs Studio. Video clips and audio tracks can be fetched from the open internet and uploaded from personal computers. Each channel is accessible on the web as well as on every internet connected, media enabled mobile phone. Forwarding to mobile phones worldwide is easily done for free from HooQs. Registered users get access to Clips4U - a personalized video feed based - and can easily build their own personal mobile portal. Everything is free, no installation required anywhere.

Anyway, if you are a video content fanatic and would want to start your own channel, publish and monetize your own content then this is the place. Take a look at the new Studio and the great features that you have available. This content will of course also be viewable on all mobile platforms…
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Israel security agency has launched a new blog in which four employees, identified by their initial letters, tell about their work as Shin Bet agents. Sounds intriguing? By what I’ve read and heard so far, the blog is not too exciting (to say the least).

This move is unexpected, considering the legendary reputation of this secret agency. I was very curious to hear what motivated this rare initiative. It appears that shin bet is interested in marketing itself as a standard high-tech company, while fighting its intimidating image. This move is a part of a bigger campaign aiming to attract program engineers and other high-tech professionals from Israel and across the world.
The lives of the Shin Bet employees as described online seem completely normal. That is the message Sin bet wishes to convey.

One of the bloggers, Y, tells the readers that his first priority is his family. “You don’t stay at work if u don’t really have to”, admits Y, who only wants to return home as early as he can. If you are looking for patriotic slogans, search elsewhere. It looks like working for Israel’s intelligence agency is not the James Bond stories that one might imagine. I personally prefer the myth, and by judging readers’ commentary, I’m not the only one!

While the official website has been recently translated into English and Arabic, the blog is only available in Hebrew. Don’t be too disappointed though: who really wants to read a blog by a boring high-tech employee ?…

I read this great post on Lisa Goldman’s blog and as always it made me stop and think. I had to outright steal it and bring it here, hope she forgives me

I saw the Photo Journalism show last year in Tel Aviv and it was amazing. As a country that relatively to its size manufactures more News then probably any other, we have quite a lot to show. Check out the website for the exhibition Edut Mekomit.

The picture here by Natan Dvir won the award for Photo of Year. The man in the picture, 36 year old Na’im El’iam, is holding the body of his son at the Erez Checkpoint (into Gaza) waiting for fighting to stop so he can continue home. His infant son passed away at Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv of heart disease.

I hear quite a bit about the Cyber Monday craze lately. Cyber Monday is that first Monday after the retail industry’s Black Friday, so named because of the chaos and high levels of traffic. Black Friday has been the top sales day in the retail industry in 2003 and 2005 and second in other years.
Wikipedia’s says

The term Cyber Monday refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in the United States between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. Whereas Black Friday is associated with traditional brick-and-mortar stores, “Cyber Monday” symbolizes a busy day for online retailers.

In any case its supposed to be the busiest day for the online retail business and we would like to take part in the mayhem.

Right now you can get 20% OFF at AmuletGifts.com on any purchase over $40. When checking out use the code “cyber20″.

Tell them we sent you

I know these guys and have been watching them grow and develop into this great site and technology platform over the last 12 months. HooQs is the next thing in mobile content sharing and worth a look.

The company developed a platform and community that allows the sharing and sending of video content to new generation cell phones (which is becoming the norm). It’s very interesting how this company is bridging between Internet content and mobile content and I am sure we will see more of these initiatives in the coming months in what is now a definite trend. The company is lead by the very capable hands of Itay Gissin and is a sure up and comer in the field of mobile content sharing. Watch out for this one !!

This is a new video clip they just put out to promote the site and service at HooQs.com…

I got this cute email for the New Year - the sign says, “My mother stuck me here to wish you a Happy New Year”

WhiteSmoke develops writing software. In addition to the traditional English grammar, spelling, and punctuation checks found in word processors, WhiteSmoke provides an enrichment feature that suggests context-based additions to users’ texts, plus an online dictionary that includes translations and a thesaurus. The patented technology stimulates the human thought process when it reads, classifies, and stores millions of English texts.

The company developed this artificial intelligence tool that is able to scan databases from news sites such as CNN and The New York Times, and studies documents from Harvard and Yale on an ongoing basis to learn how English sentences are used real-time in business, medicine and every-day life.

When a user activates WhiteSmoke software he sends text to the server, which then parses the text and returns it to the user with relevant choices for text enrichment. WhiteSmoke software is compatible with all applications; the user’s text is automatically sent to the WhiteSmoke server upon activation. An OEM version also exists, consisting of a set of client and server tools that enable websites and writing platforms to provide users access to WhiteSmoke.

WhiteSmoke has been in business for three years. Notable investors include Shlomo Touboul, evolution VC, and Yair Goldfinger, a founder of online chat giant ICQ.

The TheMarker COM.vention is on - see the pictures here. The location was nice (first time at Airport City for me). The host was Yossi Vardi, a known personality in the Internet industry that made his break with ICQ early in the first bubble. Overall, I was unimpressed by the panels, they were shallow and had little real content. Vardi was all about self promotion and bad jokes (he really should upgrade to new material). I disliked the fact that when he ran the panel, he asked a question and then completely disregarded the answer. Really not worth the time..

I enjoyed the artist sessions downstairs in the convention center. Intimate gatherings where speakers could speak about their areas of expertise. I was there for Yair Goldfinger, one of the founders of ICQ and today the CTO of Dotomi. He was discussing Internet startups, the stages of developing and testing your idea, getting funding (investment), the importance of options for employees (especially in Israel), finding the right business model and other valuable insights.

The second day, yesterday, was for the Israeli market and I wasn’t there. From some chatter online and browsing the business sections the talk is that the Interactive agencies are not doing enough to parlay the potential of the Internet to the big traditional business in Israel. Maybe it’s because the so called Interactive Marketing gurus don’t feel they need to understand the Internet in order to sell it to their clients . Rani Rahav also had a few pearls of wisdom, but wait, for that guy we are going to have a whole other post…

One of the highlights of this event for me (and a pleasant surprise) was the soft launch of an Israeli Business Social Network – café The Marker. This site was built by Dex in PHP (Kudos guys!!) and that’s a first for any of the large Israeli sites.

Here’s hoping the people from TheMarker.com learn and maybe finally get with the times on the main site, that’s still not compatible with Firefox !!!!