Israel is a country of great contrasts. It's about as large as the state of Mizoram, in terms of land mass, and its population is less than half of Mumbai's. But in terms of technology achievement, Israel's head and shoulder above India. No exaggeration.
Reuters
Just take a look at the following technology breakthroughs that have come out of Israel, and you'll truly marvel at the achievements of this tiny Middle-eastern nation.
The birth of the quintessential USB flash drive is disputed by three different companies, but one of the earliest working samples of flash storage media slapped onto a USB interface emerged from Israeli company M-Systems in December 2000 (in collaboration with IBM at the time). The first USB flash drives sported 8MB, 16MB and 32MB storage capacities.
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The world of personal computers?wouldn't have kicked off if it weren't for the IBM PC, which was powered by the Intel 8088 microprocessor. Sporting close to 30,000 transistors, the Intel 8088 was clocked at 8 MHz -- lightning quick by 1979 standards. It was created by Intel's Haifa lab, forever changing the world of computing.
If you remember Skype, you know how it allowed anyone to call any telephone in the world -- right through your Internet connected microphone. For voice to be transmitted from one computer terminal to another telephone anywhere in the world needed some techno wizardry, which came about in the form of Voice over Internet Protocol (or VoIP), developed by an Israeli company called VocalTec. It did what Skype did much before Skype came about.
One of the cornerstones of securing digital communications in a public setting is the RSA public key -- most widely used encryption keys for data transmission. It wouldn't have been possible without the joint effort of Israeli cryptographer, Adi Shamir.
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Whatsapp maybe one of the most popular chat applications right now, but at the dawn of the Internet there was only ICQ. Created by Israeli company Mirabilis in 1996,?ICQ was the first stand-alone instant messenger of its kind, and also the first online instant messenger service -- which allowed you to sign up and create accounts, have private conversations and more. No doubt, ICQ was the blueprint of other popular instant messaging services like AIM, Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk.?
With 800 million registered users by December 2016, Viber's another online chat, voice-calling and video-calling app that's developed by two ex-Israel defense servicemen --?Talmon Marco and Igor Magazinnik.
Another tech breakthrough coming from Israel is MobilEye, which pairs a tiny digital camera with intelligent algorithms to help drivers drive their vehicles more safely. The device is linked to a car's steering system, alerting a driver if they change lanes too drastically, and even detects oncoming pedestrians for potential collisions. The system is embedded in GM, BMW and Volvo cars.
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The world's smallest live video camera measures just 0.99 mm was made by Israel-based company Medigus, and the camera was used on an endoscope to provide a breakthrough in the medical world.
Invented in the 1960s, Israeli engineer Simcha Blass pioneered the smart drip and micro-irrigation system called Netafim -- used for better utilizing the amount of water in agriculture. A classic case of necessity is the mother of invention, since Israel has large swathes of barren land. This pioneering irrigation technique now operates in 112 countries with 13 factories spread across the world.
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All computers that you see around you run on silicon-based microprocessors. But what about computers that run on DNA? Sounds crazy, right? But according to the Guinness Book of World Records, "the smallest biological computing device" to have ever been built runs completely on enzymes and DNA molecules doing basic math. All thanks to the efforts of Israeli professor Ehud Shapiro, and his team, from the Weizmann Institute of Science for achieving this phenomenal feat in 2003.
Israeli company Umoove was the first in the world to create a fully software-driven face and eye-tracking technology that courted interest from Samsung and Apple to be integrated in their respective smartphones.