Top 10 music apps from Israel

In our ongoing series of “top 10” apps from Israeli developers, ISRAEL21c tunes in this time to applications that enhance your music experience.

 by Abigail Klein Leichman  , Israel21C 

Some applications are meant to help music students get the most out of their lessons, others to amp up the karaoke experience, empower budding DJs or simplify music sharing among friends. What they have in common is their blue-and-white origin.

1. Serendip Media is a social music discovery app for iPhone and iPod Touch, connecting users with others who have similar musical taste, and automatically building a playlist of the music they are sharing.

2. Tonara tracks playing in real time and flips digital score “pages” automatically. The score synchronization feature allows musicians to review their practice sessions and, in the future, will power stage-management functions such as automatic lighting or supertitle changes at concert venues and opera houses. Carmel Ventures injected $4 million into the company, calling it a “disruptive technology … designed to transform the music learning and practicing experience.”

3. Yokee  from Famous Blue Media lets you sing along and record your favorite songs from YouTube music videos, and share your karaoke creations with others. It offers special effects like echo and reverb. Available for iOS and Android devices.

4. EQuala  social radio app lets you listen to friends’ music instantly, by following them and adding their choices to the personalized playlist. A “music DNA” created for each user helps you identify others with similar musical taste. The app’s newartist promotionplatform, Feature.fm, stemmed from EQuala’s need to monetize. Featured songs replace audio ads, minimizing disturbance in the listening experience and providing artists with a new level of exposure.

5. Piano Dust Buster 2.0, from award-winning interactive video game developer JoyTunes, is an interactive iPad game to teach beginning piano. The player helps a virtual granny dust her piano, in the process learning the musical notes and rhythm of the instrument. A 3D virtual keyboard activates the app for those players without a real one handy. There’s a special mode for practicing sheet music, and players collect points for a job well done. Piano Mania  is JoyTunes’ answer for more advanced players.        
 Piano Dust Buster Trailer clip

6. Recorder Master, also from JoyTunes, provides beginner recorder players with different interactive game levels that are actually music lessons designed to develop a variety of skills, such as fingering technique, tone production of a single note, correct rhythm and timing of complete melodies. This app won a bunch of international awards when it was released in 2010.  
Music Game for Recorder clip

7. Fusic allows fans to step into their idols’ shoes by recording their own cover versions of their favorite songs — which are then spliced into the corresponding music video in minutes. Once done, the Fusic video can be shared through social media channels. The app is gaining traction, with stars like Mariah Carey putting their stamp of approval on it. Fusic is available on iPhone, iPad and iPod formats; an Android version is expected in late 2014.

8. DJ Mix Box from instruMagic lets iPhone users “play with music” by providing live sets of loops and sounds. You can loop in and out of the mix, blend in sound clips and tweak DJ effects by tilting the device.

9. Songful, also from instruMagic, turns an iPad into a virtual guitar. Users choose any chord page from Ultimate Guitar’s 200,000-song collection and then strum the “strings” and tap buttons to progress from chord to chord. The app costs $2.99 but there is a free alternative, ZAP Guitar, without a link to Ultimate Guitar’s site.    
Songful guitar app for iPad clip

10. Jamstar works with your actual guitar and your iOS or Android device’s microphone. You can learn to play rhythm, chords, scales and popular songs with the help of tutorials geared to beginners to advanced players. Real-time feedback lets you know if you’re playing correctly, and you can share your performance with friends, family and teachers.

IT Spending in Brazil to Grow 5.7% in 2015

IT spending in Brazil is forecast to total $125.3 billion in 2015, a 5.7% increase from 2014 projected spending of $118.5 billion and much of this spending will be driven by the digital industrial economy, according to Gartner, Inc.


Cassio Dreyfuss, research vice president at Gartner, provided the latest outlook for the IT industry today to an audience of more than 1,400 CIOs and IT leaders at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here through October 30.

“Enterprises today compete globally in all industries. Despite economic deceleration, Brazil demonstrates that IT is well-entrenched in the enterprise core strategy and is seen as a tool for competitiveness development, in best and and in challenging times, as well” said Dreyfuss. “Software, IT services, and mobile data services will post double-digit growth in 2015, with strong IT demand from vertical industries like banking and securities, manufacturing, natural resources, not to mention consumer markets.”

For 2015 versus 2014, Gartner’s projections show that the devices segment (including PCs, tablets, mobile phones, and printers) in Brazil is projected to total $19.1 billion, a 1% increase from 2014 spending. Data center systems’ spending is expected to exceed $3 billion, a 7% increase from 2014. Software spending will total $5.7 billion, up 13.7%; IT services spending will reach $21.5 billion in 2015, up 13.7%t; and telecom services is projected to total $75.9 billion in 2015, a 4.2% increase from 2014.

Every Business Units is a “Technology Startup”

There is a dramatic shift in IT spending power. There is a shift of demand and control away from IT and toward digital business units closer to the customer.

“Thirty-eight percent of total IT spend happens outside of IT already, with a disproportionate amount in digital initiatives. By 2017, it will be over 50 percent,” Dreyfuss said. “Digital startups sit inside your own organization, in your marketing department, in HR, in logistics and in sales. Your business units are acting as technology startups. Today, every budget is an IT budget, frequently outside of the CIO control--but not outside of the CIO purview. IT Leaders must be called to participate in those decisions, to address issues such as IT economic effectiveness, architecture integration and security optimization.”

Gartner estimates that 50% of all technology sales people are actively selling direct to business units, not IT departments. Millions of sales people, and hundreds of thousands of resellers and channel partners are looking for new money flows in the fluid digital world, and they are finding eager buyers.


Become a Bimodal Organization
Bimodal IT , formally supporting two modes of operation, offers a solution to exploit dynamic business opportunities while maintaining operations excellence in its foundation systems. Mode 1 is what Mr. Dreyfuss calls “enterprise strength IT”, and the systems that support it must be reliable, efficient, scalable and secure. Mode 2, “opportunistic IT”, is driven by often unanticipated opportunities, emphasizing flexibility, agility, and speed (like a startup).

Dreyfuss used the example of smart machines to highlight the type of disruption that characterizes digital business. Smart machines are an emerging “super class” of technologies that perform a wide variety of tasks, of both the physical and the intellectual kind. For example, school computers have been grading multiple choice tests for many years, and now they are grading essays, unstructured tests that require analysis.

“Not only is the grading more accurate, but students actually work harder on their essays when they know they are being graded by a smart machine,” Dreyfuss said. “Other professional tasks won’t be far behind: financial analysis, medical diagnostics, and data analytics jobs will be impacted.

Smart robots will appear not just on the manufacturing floor, where they do physical work, but in the workplace and even in the home. Smart machines will automate decision making. A modern airplane is a perfect example: hundreds of sensors--Internet of Things at its best--feeding robots that make decisions collaboratively.

Impact of Digital Business on Jobs
Internet of things will generate vast amounts of new information and smart machines will take care of part of it. Digital businesses will impact jobs in different ways. The synergy among technology families--social and mobile tools, for instance--triggers the creation of totally new business models and processes. By 2018, digital businesses will require 50 percent fewer business process workers. However, at the same time, digital business will drive a 500% boost in digital jobs.

First global social network for doctors

G-Med, the world’s first and only global social-professional network exclusively for physicians, allows doctors anywhere to consult with colleagues, manage multinational research projects and offer virtual services to patients.

by Abigail Klein Leichman  , Israel21C

‘The ability to have discussions on medical and paramedical issues between physicians all over the world is very exciting,’ says Israeli neurosurgeon.     Launched in Israel last year, G-Med proved so popular that its founder, Hagar Mordoch, took it global at the end of 2013. Today this unique social network has about 20,000 users from more than 50 different countries.

That kind of diversity was just what Dr. Sagi Harnof needed when he recently began planning brain surgery for a patient who is a Jehovah’s Witness. This religion forbids blood transfusions. Harnof, deputy chief of neurosurgery at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center, rarely encounters Jehovah’s Witnesses and so he presented the case via G-Med.

“I got comments from colleagues in North and South America and Europe,” says Harnof, who is one of the site’s two medical advisers. The online guidance helped him strategize the best surgical procedure for the patient’s health and religious beliefs.

“For me, the ability to have discussions on medical and paramedical issues between physicians all over the world is very exciting. There are no borders for medicine, and it’s only natural to talk between professionals and share thoughts,” Harnof tells ISRAEL21c. “It’s only the beginning, but I feel it’s a very nice platform to communicate between physicians.”

Brazil Builds Internet Cable To Portugal To Avoid NSA Surveillance

Brazil is building a cable across the Atlantic to escape the reach of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The move is one of many ways the Brazilian government is breaking ties with American technology companies -- but it won’t come cheap.

The 3,500-mile fiber-optic cable will stretch from Fortaleza to Portugal, with an estimated cost of $185 million, Bloomberg reported. Of course, none of this will go to American vendors.

 

Last year,  Edward Snowden leaked documents that showed the NSA was accessing personal information of Brazilian citizens, including listening to phone calls of President Dilma Rousseff, its embassies and the state-owned oil company Petrobras.

"As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country," Rousseff said at the U.N. that year.

“The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained. Brazil, Mr. President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbor terrorist groups," she said.

Brazil has already switched its dominant email system from Microsoft Outlook to a state-developed platform called Expresso, and last November required all government agencies to use state-owned companies for their technology services.

Brazil is the seventh-largest economy in the world. U.S. companies could lose as much as $35 billion in revenue in the next two years, as buyers doubt the security of their connections, according to research group Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

The cable is set to be constructed in early 2015, overseen by state-owned company Telecomunicacoes Brasileiras SA, known as Telebras

October Newsletter – Telecommunication’s Revolutionized Platform

Vega newsletter is published monthly by Vega BI, and distributed to our partners to facilitate pursuit of a common interest in top-notch technologies.
During recent months, we have published technical reviews on latest platform related solutions: SDN, NFV and OpenStack. Our technical review this month is on how Telecommunication industry can use OpenStack as cloud infrastructure for implementing NFV and SDN, in order to reduce costs and increase competitiveness.

OpenStack as Telecom platform for SDN and NFV strategy 

Over the past decade, the IT industry has experienced significant changes brought on by the widespread adoption of virtualized technology and cloud based data centers. The need for scalability, reduced infrastructure cost, optimized operation , maintenance, and speed to market with new applications are a few of the key factors that drove this revolution.

More recently, enterprises increasingly look to open source cloud solutions, and OpenStack specifically as the leading open source cloud technology.

In the Telecommunication industry, Network Operators and Telco are now facing the same challenges and require similar core architectural advances. Their networks are comprised of large, siloes proprietary platforms that are becoming increasingly difficult to scale, manage, and operate. The primary challenge is how to quickly deploy and operationalize new services while maintaining economic efficiencies.

Often, the cost and complexity are amplified because the hardware-based appliances that are dedicated to performing a single function within the network have short lifecycles and consume large amounts of space and power. And, the rapid growth of data and multimedia applications is causing exploding network traffic at the same time that NO revenues from new services are stagnating.

The combination of market conditions and network constraints is demanding that Network Operators and Telco pursue a cloud based approach much like that adopted by the IT industry. However, technologies and design principles used as the basis for typical IT cloud applications cannot be applied directly to network services without accounting for carrier-grade requirements.

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), coupled with Software Defined Networking (SDN), offer a way for Network Operators and Telco to address these problems. By deploying OpenStack as the enabling cloud platform, NOs have a proven way to implement NFV and SDN to leverage the benefits of open source software to further reduce costs and position themselves as competitive.

The Telecommunication industry currently stands on the cusp of a new era in network management.  SDN and NFS promise to revolutionize the industry by enabling carriers to have more dynamic control over their resources and environments. This new-found level of control will allow Network Operators and Telcos to make real-time adjustments to network conditions as needed, diverting assets to high-volume users or redirecting traffic in the event of a localized outage.

Given such bold assertions, mobile operators may wonder how exactly they can come to obtain these capabilities. The answer is cloud-based computing and network platforms – most notably, OpenStack.

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

UniVerve - Bringing Microalgae Promise to life

UniVerve Ltd. initiates the establishment of microalgae farms as feedstock for Biofuel, Food

supplements and Feed, based on its patent-pending technology. The combination of UniVerve's selected microalgae strains, its production system’s efficiency and the commercialization of the complete biomass produced, results in an innovative production process with profitability levels anticipated to exceed those currently achieved by the microalgae industry.

UniVerve's cultivation and harvesting system is scalable and simple to construct, operate and maintain. Thanks to its high yield and low energy consumption the production cost of an oil barrel as feedstock for biofuel is expected to be up to USD 50. The ability to profitably produce a commodity such as oil makes this award-winning technology a game changer also in the production of high value/small market compounds for food, cosmetics, pharma and more. UniVerve's microalgae strain contains triglycerides that can serve as feedstock for biofuel, Omega-3 EPA that can serve as feedstock for human food supplements, and full protein that can serve as feedstock for aquafeed.

This presents UniVerve with a tremendous Opportunity. The Biofuel market value was $56BL in 2012; it is expected to reach $113BL by 2020. The Omega-3 market value was $25BL in 2011;

it is  expected to reach $35BL by 2016, due to reduced availability and capture of Peruvian anchovy, the major source of omega-3 oils and the rapid growth in the volume consumed in Asia. The Biomass for feed market value was $15BL in 2011 and is growing as a result of an increase in the quantity of on-shore fish production. The global shortage of feedstock (oil, Omega-3 and protein-rich biomass), drives up the price of these commodities, so fuel, food & feed players are constantly searching for alternatives, which will lower COGS and save hedging cost. Microalgae are natural producers of these materials, thus they present immense commercial potential as valuable feedstock for these industries.


UniVerve’s multi-faceted business development strategy includes the establishment of microalgae farms, singly or in joint ventures, as well as technology licensing. Farms may be designated for combined oil and food/feed production or for food/feed production alone. UniVerve's revenues will include license fee, royalties, consulting fee and dividends, depending on the model chosen by each client.

UniVerve began constructing its first farm in Israel, which is planned to reach 85 hectares by 2019 (see picture). As the regulatory and infrastructure support systems for Biofuel in Israel are at an early

stage, UniVerve’s first farm in Israel will be an Omega-3 rich biomass production farm. Algal Omega-3 and biomass exporters already presented UniVerve with letters of intent for the purchase of the entire production, which is expect ted be replaced by a binding off-take agreement in Q1/2015. UniVerve received great interest from potential off-takers in Europe, USA and Asia and plans to begin the establishment of a second farm in Israel by 2016.

UniVerve has begun business development in Asia and partnered with a strong engineering company, United Engineers Limited from Singapore (UEL), as its EPC partner. UniVerve, with UEL support, already found leading Chinese companies from the biofuel, Omega-3 and aquafeed industries that are interested to become off-takers of materials from UniVerve's future farm in China, planned to be established by 2017.

OpenStack as Telecom platform for SDN and NFV strategy

Changing Telecom industry landscape

Over the past decade, the IT industry has experienced significant changes brought on by the widespread adoption of virtualized technology and cloud based data centers. The need for scalability, reduced infrastructure cost, optimized operation , maintenance, and speed to market with new applications are a few of the key factors that drove this revolution.

More recently, enterprises increasingly look to open source cloud solutions, and OpenStack specifically as the leading open source cloud technology.

In the Telecommunication industry, Network Operators and Telco are now facing the same challenges and require similar core architectural advances. Their networks are comprised of large, siloes proprietary platforms that are becoming increasingly difficult to scale, manage, and operate. The primary challenge is how to quickly deploy and operationalize new services while maintaining economic efficiencies.

Often, the cost and complexity are amplified because the hardware-based appliances that are dedicated to performing a single function within the network have short lifecycles and consume large amounts of space and power. And, the rapid growth of data and multimedia applications is causing exploding network traffic at the same time that NO revenues from new services are stagnating.

The combination of market conditions and network constraints is demanding that Network Operators and Telco pursue a cloud based approach much like that adopted by the IT industry. However, technologies and design principles used as the basis for typical IT cloud applications cannot be applied directly to network services without accounting for carrier-grade requirements.

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), coupled with Software Defined Networking (SDN), offer a way for Network Operators and Telco to address these problems. By deploying OpenStack as the enabling cloud platform, NOs have a proven way to implement NFV and SDN to leverage the benefits of open source software to further reduce costs and position themselves competitive .

The Telecommunication industry is currently stand on the cusp of a new era in network management. SDN and NFS promise to revolutionize the industry by enabling carriers to have more dynamic control over their resources and environments. This new-found level of control will allow Network Operators and Telcos to make real-time adjustments to network conditions as needed, diverting assets to high-volume users or redirecting traffic in the event of a localized outage. Given such bold assertions, mobile operators may wonder how exactly they can come to obtain these capabilities. The answer is cloud-based computing and network platforms – most notably, OpenStack.

Brazilian IT Firms Demand that Government Loosen Tax Burdens

Brazil’s IT sector is expected to account for 6% of GDP by 2022, according to Brasscom President Sergio Paulo Gallindo.
Posted by: Silvia Rosa , Nearshore Americas

The high tax burden is one of the major barriers to the development of the information technology and communication sector (ICT) in Brazil.  

Brazil has the third highest corporate and indirect tax rate among the G20 countries, and on average this accounts for 34% of income, behind only the United States (40%) and Japan (35.64%), according to a KPMG survey published this year.

Faced with such challenges, last August a group formed by the major market players, including the Brazilian Association of Software Companies (ABES), the Brazilian Association of IT (Assespro) and the Brazilian Association of ICT (Brasscom), sent the Brazilian presidential candidates a program called “For a Digital and Competitive Brazil”. The initiative aims to improve IT companies’ competitiveness under the next Brazilian government.

Market data shows there are over 70,000 ICT companies in Brazil today, which account for 8.8% of the Brazilian GDP. The Brazilian IT industry is the seventh largest market worldwide, with an investment of US$61.6 billion in 2013.

“It is necessary to give the ICT segment the importance it deserves. Today, this sector employs 1.3 million professionals and it represents 4.6% of the Brazilian GDP, excluding the telecommunications industry, and it is expected to reach 6% of the Brazilian GDP by 2022,” said Sergio Paulo Gallindo, president at Brasscom.

The high tax burden harms the competitiveness of Brazilian companies in comparison to other emerging markets. Brazil is 53% more expensive than India, for example. Considering the regional tax rates, the taxation on Brazilian companies can exceed 40% of revenue, and it represents 38% of the Brazilian GDP.

For this reason, among the main demands of IT entities are a reduction in cost of capital for IT companies, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises; more tax incentives for using big data platforms; and tax relief on cloud services.

In general, taxes are even higher for equipment manufacturers, which have to pay IPI tax, a federal exercise tax on all industrial goods. On the other hand, companies that develop and license software are taxed according to the tax rate applied to the service sector, which involves up to eight different tax rates.

How malware writers' laziness is helping one startup predict attacks before they even happen

Summary: Siemens is impressed at what Israeli security startups CyActive can do – developing ways of mitigating attacks before they can take place.

By David Shamah for Tel Aviv Tech 

Biblical-style prophecy may be a thing of the past, but Israeli security startup CyActive is developing technology that can predict what exploits malware writers are going to come up with next, allowing developers to come up with a way of mitigating the attacks — even before the malware agent behind it is even created.

The technology, which CyActive has been working for about a year, is garnering attention in the enterprise — to the extent that the company announced several weeks ago that it had received a "substantial strategic investment" from the venture capital Unit of Siemens. CyActive didn't say how much it got, but Ralf Schnell, CEO of the Siemens' unit, said that he was "particularly excited" by CyActive's approach "to securing industrial and utilities assets. CyActive’s founders are leaders in the field and the company’s unprecedented cyber security technology turns the economic equation in favour of the defender".

Abetting CyActive in its prophetic efforts are the technical limitations of malware writing — or, some would say, the laziness of the malware writers themselves. According to CyActive CEO Leron Tancman, malware — like legitimate software — is often derivative, and even advanced attacks have the same core components as earlier versions.

"You can see very clearly what the 'kill chain of exploitation' is, the methods hackers are using now and the variants they are likely to use," Tancman said. "Even the major attacks of recent years, such as Flame, Stuxnet, and others, use a similar core."