Scientists at Israel’s Technion have designed a low-energy system for harvesting safe drinking water from air; scientists have rewritten engineering rules to build a boat that is lighter, faster, more durable and uses less fuel, and much more. 

By: Michael Ordman

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Water from air – using less energy

Scientists at Israel’s Technion have designed a low-energy system for harvesting safe drinking water from air. It uses a liquid desiccant to separate water vapor from air and then condenses just the vapor. It saves up to 65% of the energy of current systems.
http://nocamels.com/2016/09/drinking-water-from-air/

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b01280

Breaking the waves

Researchers at Israel’s Technion and Israel’s Sela Ltd. have rewritten engineering rules to build the Dganit – a boat that is lighter, faster, more durable and uses less fuel. The design stops waves from the “slamming” effect that causes stress. Combined with a polyurea coating, it allows the use of thinner plates.
http://www.technion.ac.il/en/2016/10/technion-researchers-develop-innovative-boat/

Intelligent video analysis

Israeli video analytics startup Agent Video Intelligence can help monitor cities, infrastructure, transport and stores. Its sensors automatically analyze, detect and search massive files of video data through its cloud interface. Agent Vi has just received $7m funding to help it expand in Asia and Europe.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/lsrael-video-analytics-firm-gets-kuang-chi-investment/

Rothschild Blvd becomes Innovation Blvd

Trendy Rothschild Boulevard was transformed into “Innovation boulevard” on Sep 27 as part of Tel Aviv’s Digital-Life-Design (DLD) conference. It showcased interactive and virtual reality displays, robots, talking trees, video and street art, music tech and 3D textiles.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/rothschild-blvd-to-become-innovation-blvd-for-a-day/

Smartphone repairer does home visits

Israeli startup MOBILAB gets you a trusted technician to fix your smartphone at home or the office. Use their app (if your phone is still working), or their website. Available in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Bnei Brak and Givatayim, it will soon expand to the rest of the country and maybe internationally.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-app-brings-smartphone-repair-to-the-home/
http://themobilab.com/ (Hebrew-only site)

Helping Panama save water

A delegation of Panama’s water sector decision makers came to Israel to see its technology and strategy for making best use of its water resources. They were most impressed with Israel’s central control of water and also focused on Israel’s water reclamation, treatment and purification systems.
http://israelnewtech.com/2016/09/%ef%bb%bf-panama-israel-embark-path-cooperation-water-sector/

 

Click here for all of this week’s Good News from Israel.