Israeli Students Develop An Electronic ‘Guide Dog’ For The Blind

Despite the constant advancement in cutting edge technology, most blind people still use low-tech aids like a cane or guide dog. Combining both high and low tech, three undergraduate students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion have decided create an electronic guide dog for the blind.

By NoCamels 

“The idea came to me while I was driving, where right before me I saw a blind man having trouble crossing the road,” undergraduate student Tzahi Simkin recalls. “I thought that if I could only describe to him, through technological means, a snapshot of the surrounding area, I would make it much easier for him and build his confidence in getting better oriented with his surroundings. I wanted to combine technological development with social assistance, and this is how this product was born.”   Simkin partnered up with two undergrads, Gal Dalal and Danny Zilber, and together the trio began working on the project.  The device is based on a Kinect camera (also developed in Israel), a mobile phone application and headphones. The app deciphers the images captured by the Kinect camera and gives the user audio feedback through the headphones, warning them of obstacles and even recognizing cetain pre-programmed objects.

“The technological advantage of the Kinect camera lies in its ability to take very good depth images and that it is relatively cheap,” added Simkin. “This field is continually evolving, with cameras becoming smaller and less expensive all the time. Our project connected the depth images received from a smartphone application, to guide the blind within a given space.”

PlaySight gets tennis players backhand compliments

Israeli company, based on military technology, makes CourtSmart to record and analyze moves in order to improve performance.

by Karin Kloosterman, Israel21C

The story of this Israel startup could be the setting for the next TV hit: Imagine three Israeli middle-aged men, all partners in big high-tech companies since leaving the army, where they worked on top-secret weaponry and war simulators. After taking that experience into 15 years of building technologies sold to some of the world’s biggest defense clients, they started looking for something new.

April Newsletter - Business - Driven Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Vega newsletter is published monthly by Vega BI, and distributed to our partners to facilitate pursuit of a common interest in top-notch technologies.

For years, security and business managers have known that identity and access management (IAM) must be driven by business requirements. After all, business managers know best “who should have access to what”. Business-Driven Identity and Access Management is our topic of the month

Business-Driven Identity and Access Management

For years, security and business managers have known that identity and access management (IAM) must be

driven by business requirements. After all, business managers know best “who should have access to what.”

But all too often, IAM processes don’t reflect this “business context”. These processes lack support for a business view of access which reflects the fine-grained entitlements that determine specifically which actions users may take within applications. In addition, traditional IAM systems have consistently been prohibitively expensive to deploy and operate, limiting their breadth of coverage and effectiveness.

This business context is the sum total of everything an organization knows about its users, their job responsibilities, and the information, applications and entitlements they need. While some context is contained within IT-managed systems (such as directories and HR applications), additional context is also held by the managers who supervise users or by the owners of business functions, applications and data, not by the IT or security staff.

Organizations cannot afford to spend any more than they must on identity and access management. Nor can they afford the regulatory, legal or intellectual property risks of not properly managing identity and access

management. The road to the most efficient and effective identity and access management runs right through the owners of the business processes, applications and data. Using the detailed “business context” about which users require what access and entitlements as the foundation for automated, business driven identity and access management that delivers the maximum business value at the lowest cost.

 For more ...... See Vega's April  Newsletter

Israeli firm nabs cyber prize

CyberArk named best advanced persistent threat protection in SC Awards Europe 2014, for its privileged account security solution.

By Abigail Klein Leichman, Israel21c

Earlier this month, CyberArk was selected as best advanced persistent threat protection at the SC Awards Europe 2014. Israel’s largest private cyber-security software company also was ranked “highly commended” in the identity-management category from among hundreds of vendors and service providers.

“After being narrowed down to a select group of finalists, our judges pored over the entries to thoroughly

compare each product against its peers,” said Illena Armstrong, VP for editorial at SC Magazine for IT security professionals, the award’s sponsor. “CyberArk was selected as the winner in this year’s SC Awards Europe for its ability to best meet the needs of its customers.”

The SC Awards are recognized as a high mark of achievement for information-technology security professionals and products. The annual awards showcase the best solutions, services and professionals working to fend off growing security threats in today’s corporate world.

CyberArk employs about 350 people worldwide, half of them in the company’s Petah Tikva home base and R&D center. More than 30 of the Fortune 100 and 17 of the world’s 20 largest banks are counted among its 1,400 customers.

The company’s award-winning software “locks up” critical IT infrastructure, monitoring and recording everything done with data accessed by authorized (“privileged”) users on-premise, off-premise or in the cloud.

“Privileged and administrative credentials are a predominant exploit for advanced attacks because they empower attackers to become de facto insiders and commandeer a company’s infrastructure,” said John Worrall, chief marketing officer for CyberArk at its US headquarters in Massachusetts.

“Preventing the exploitation of these accounts is critical in protecting against the latest attacks. This award validates our approach as CyberArk continues to develop innovative solutions to protect against an increasingly menacing threat landscape.

This Tiny Handheld Scanner Will Change the World

SCiO is a mind-blowing technology that can change how we interact with the world

By: Avner Meyrav

SCiO is a tiny handheld scanner that can tell you whether an apple you want to bite into is fresh, what’s in

the pills your doctor prescribed, how many calories is in your meal, or whether your plant needs more water.

“Smartphones give us instant answers to questions like where to have dinner, what movie to see, and how to get from point A to point B, but when it comes to learning about what we interact with on a daily basis, we’re left in the dark,” says Dror Sharon, CEO of Consumer Physics, the company behind SCiO.

SCiO works using a molecular scanner, which uses optics to identify the unique “fingerprint” of the molecular composition of any of matter. While molecular scanners are used in labs around the world, they are bulky pieces of equipment that are not mass-market oriented.

Consumer Physics has taken the same technology and designed SCiO from the ground up to be mass-produced at low cost. When infrared light is shined on a sample, it excites the molecules and makes them vibrate in a unique way. The wavelength-dependent light absorption of the molecules creates optical signatures according to an object’s chemical composition.

SCiO transmits that information to the cloud using Bluetooth technology, where the sample is analyzed and a reading is sent back to the users within seconds – displaying it on their smartphone.

Brazil governance event raises expectations over Internet reform

Summary: President Dilma Rousseff sent a strong message about an Internet management overhaul to the world, but concrete actions are required

By Angelica Mari for Brazil Tech 

The opening of governance event NetMundial has cemented the Brazil's position as the world's most vocal nation on the subject of Internet reform.
President Dilma Rousseff sanctioned the Marco Civil da Internet, Brazil's first set of regulations for the Internet before starting her presentation at the event yesterday (23). In her speech, Rousseff highlighted the need for better definitions of online privacy and said she hopes that Brazil's own online bill of rights will inspire other countries to come up with their own.

Flanked by her key political allies and Internet figureheads, Rousseff reiterated that offline rights should be protected online. The president briefly touched on the main topics in discussion at the event such as net neutrality, saying that "user data should be inviolable."
In reference to government spying programs, the president made her "indignation and repulse" known once again: "These events are not acceptable, were not acceptable in the past, and remain unacceptable today in that they are an affront to the free nature of the internet as an open, democratic platform," Rousseff said.

"We all want to protect the internet as a democratic space that's a shared asset for all of humankind," the Brazilian president added. "We also want it to remain a strong economic force, providing that it continues to become more inclusive."

The president reinforced Brazil's preference for a multistakeholder model for Internet governance (including the government, private sector, civil society and related bodies) in balance with a multilateral approach in regard to the government influence in the process, "so long as a country has no greater weight than another," - here, Dilma was reffering to the United States control of ICANN, the entity responsible for the management of IP numbers and addresses.

Rousseff's speech was preceded by Internet heavyweights and supporters of Brazil's campaign to secure a more democratic and decentralized web. Google's chief evangelist Vint Cerf praised CGI.br, the Brazilian Internet steering committee and originator of suggested principles for Web use and governance and also stressed that when the US contract ends with ICANN, a multistakeholder framework must be introduced.

World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee said he was glad that the United States had decided to relinquish control of the Internet and that the decision was "well overdue."
The influencers who made their way to Brazil to be part of the debate want concrete results. Vice President of the EU Commission leading its Digital Agenda policy Neelie Kroes said she will be "breathing down everyone's neck" until a discussion on concrete actions takes place.

"Those afraid of timelines for Internet governance reform need to remember that talking is not doing. [There is] no change without timelines," Kroes tweeted.

There has been a lot of skepticism about the ability of NetMundial to achieve anything concrete for the global community and that the agenda of the meeting is just rehashing previous similar events and a lot of time-wasting fluff.
But there is also a lot of momentum around it - the sanctioning of Brazil's own Internet Bill of Rights, Internet influencers supporting the initiative and the fact that this is all taking place as a response to the United States spying revelations…send a very strong message to the world.

With an enforceable law regulating the net, Brazil’s role as a host and promoter of NETmundial attracts more depth and interest to the discussion - as well as more authority to lead the global debate.

There are also some different circumstances and developments around this particular event: sure, it is Dilma Rousseff's government response to the NSA spying, but also, we are reaching a turning point in terms of internet governance.

The World Wide Web is now 25 years old and only now we seem to be seriously talking about governance, the actual principles, rights and guarantees of Internet users. As Berners-Lee pointed out during his speech yesterday, the technical work done on Internet was great, but it also widened the digital divide.

The internet is a global resource and so should be the way it is managed. If anything, NetMundial should be the start of conversations around the adoption of collaborative model for the management of the Internet, investment in domestic infrastructure and digital services to move away the current global power aggregation over our rights and freedoms online.

Hopefully, other countries will follow suit and start adopting their own "Internet Constitutions." Now we'll just have to see if the practice will be just as excellent and exciting as the promise.

Business-Driven Identity and Access Management

Executive Summary

For years, security and business managers have known that identity and access management (IAM) must be driven by business requirements. After all, business managers know best “who should have access to what.”

But all too often, IAM processes don’t reflect this “business context.” These processes lack support for a business view of access which reflects the fine-grained entitlements that determine specifically which actions users may take within applications. In addition, traditional IAM systems have consistently been prohibitively expensive to deploy and operate, limiting their breadth of coverage and effectiveness. 

This business context is the sum total of everything an organization knows about its users, their job responsibilities, and the information, applications and entitlements they need. While some context is contained within IT-managed systems (such as directories and HR applications), additional context is also held by the managers who supervise users or by the owners of business functions, applications and data, not by the IT or security staff.

This paper explains why today’s IAM systems fail to properly reflect business context, describes why embracing business-driven identity and access management (BDIAM) reduces costs while increasing security, and describes a step-by-step methodology for implementing it

Today’s Reality: Failed Identity Management

Today’s organizations face more security threats and regulatory challenges than ever, not to mention the potential damage to shareholder value and reputation that would result from a data breach. Yet not only are IAM systems failing to keep up, they are falling behind the need to proactively manage ever-changing risk postures. IAM architectures are fragmented, complex, and ill-equipped to deal with the pace of change in an organization, from simple employee transfers to restructuring, new regulatory requirements and mergers and acquisitions.

Cloud computing increases complexity by creating a new application silo (and more administrators with privileged access) for every new cloud application and cloud service provider. It also increases the rate of change, as lines of business obtain new services, often without informing the central IT or security groups. Mobile computing and the “bring your own device” trend create yet more identity and access management silos to accommodate each new platform.  

The result is that even as organizations need easier, faster and more consistent identity and  access management, the pace of change makes their risk posture ever less certain. Relying on siloes, reactive, incomplete systems make it even harder to discover and apply the business context needed for each application or group of systems, and the lack of a single, central IAM infrastructure even more critical.

The key to solving these problems is to leverage a modern identity and access management system built around business context.