While it’s not so simple to find cancerous cells before they have multiplied enough to be noticeable, it might not be long before healthcare workers can start stocking an American-Israeli bio-tech company’s diagnostic kit that can detect increased risk for breast cancer. Earlier this summer, a subsidiary of Ramat Gan-based Micromedic Technologies submitted an application to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval to begin testing the kit’s effectiveness in clinical use. Already, clinical studies at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem show that the kit achieves a nearly perfect rate of detection sensitivity. http://www.israel21c.org/201012078564/health/fighting-cancer-with-early-detection

Mobile GPS navigation application developer Waze Inc. has raised $25 million in its second financing round from existing investors Magma Venture Partners, Vertex Venture Capital, and BlueRun Ventures. Qualcomm Ventures also participated in the round. Waze CTO Ehud Shabtai, president Uri Levine, and VP R&D Amir Shinar founded the company in 2008. The company raised $12 million in its first financing round. Waze’s smartphone navigation application can be downloaded to enable users to avoid traffic. The application can also tell the user how much time it will take to reach his destination, and whether there are traffic police along the route. A few days ago, Waze announced that it had reached 2.2 million users in all the countries where it operates. Waze’s executives call the company “the Wikipedia for drivers”. Its product is based on users’ content, which updates maps and warns of traffic congestion. The objective is to use the users’ updates and reports to enable a driver to find alternative routes to avoid traffic. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000606619&fid=1725

Thousands of entries poured in from entrepreneurs in 150 countries when General Electric announced its $200 million GE Ecomagination Challenge last July. Ten weeks later, judges announced five winners: Three from the United States and two from Israel. Each received $100,000, no strings attached, to develop their ideas for creating a smarter, cleaner, more efficient power grid and global energy transformation through open collaboration. The two Israeli awardees are GridON of Givatayim, whose “Keeper” fault-current limiter protects the electric grid from disruptions and power outages; and WinFlex of Kiryat Yam, whose wind turbine rotors made from light, flexible and inexpensive composite fabric, reduce installation costs by at least half. http://www.israel21c.org/201012068580/environment/israeli-companies-meet-the-ge-challenge

Rather than make do with the partial solutions available today, Ze’ev Zalevsky, professor of engineering at Bar Ilan University and inventor of a unique system to help improve the eyesight of those suffering from presbyopia, suggests a monofocal lens which can focus light from between 13 inches away up to the horizon. The lens is engraved with special patterns which shifts the phase of light waves, enabling clear focus on objects both near and far. His company, Petah Tikvah-based Xceed Imaging has a dozen employees, and has been in business since he helped found it in 2007. The company was started with private funding, and now has a development agreement with Bar-Ilan University. Zalevsky hopes that the first lenses based on his interferometric solution will hit the market within six months to a year. http://www.israel21c.org/201012058523/technology/a-revolution-in-glasses-is-underway

NICE Systems Ltd. financial transaction monitoring software unit NICE Actimize said today that Russian financial regulators have deployed its system for market surveillance. The federal executive body regulating the Russian Federation’s financial markets, Federal Financial Markets Service (FFMS), has deployed NICE Actimize’s solution. According to NICE Actimize, the FFMS has already uncovered suspect activity from its implementation of the Actimize Market Surveillance solution, which includes compliance monitoring for equity, fixed income, futures and other securities and trading products. The FFMS currently monitors tens of millions of orders daily from the two primary Russian exchanges, the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) and the Russian Trading System (RTS), involving some one million executions. The FFMS sought the Actimize Market Surveillance solution in its efforts to enforce a new Russian Federal Law to prevent abuse of inside information and market manipulation. The new law is expected to go into effect in January. The law is intended to reinforce market integrity and transparency in Russian financial markets. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000605359&fid=1725

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has invested in Israeli mobile application start-up Any.Do Ltd. Genesis Partners, Blumberg Capital, and Schmidt’s Innovation Edeavors invested $1 million in Any.Do’s first financing round. Private investors, including Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Joe Lonsdale, also invested in the company. Any.Do also hired Facebook mobile manager Eric Chang and Twitter search location-based manager Elad Gil as advisors. Any.Do CEO Omer Perchik co-founded the company with two others in January 2010. Perchik served in the IDF computer unit. The founders developed the product in a garage. Perchik says that the company will use the proceeds from the financing round to complete development of the product and hire employees to work on the product’s software, algorithms, marketing, and user interface. Any.Do’s technology analyzes users’ intentions to help them carry out daily tasks in real time over their mobile telephones. The technology can be activated by voice ID by analyzing natural language and personalizing the services offered. Perchik says that the technology will change attitudes towards mobile telephones and further enhance the user’s experience. The product is due to reach market during 2011. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000604077&fid=1725

Ben-Shaul of the Film and Television Department at Tel Aviv University has created the world’s first, fully interactive feature film where the viewer gets to decide at various points, in real time, how the action will progress. “It’s nothing short of revolutionary,” he tells ISRAEL21c. “It has the possibility of turning every one of us into potential film directors.” Ben-Shaul is not a technologist – he teaches classes in cinema studies at Tel Aviv University so to create his interactive movie, he partnered with Guy Avneyon who built a sophisticated patent-pending movie editor and standalone player. The technology is still under construction, as is the company. Turbulence (also the name of Ben-Shaul’s interactive film) is just now being incorporated and seeking angel investment. For Ben-Shaul, that’s less important. His focus is the process of thinking through the making of an interactive movie. Turbulence isn’t the only software company making interactive movies. Israeli alternative rock sensation Yoni Bloch owns a company called Interlude, which is moving in the same direction. Earlier this year, Interlude produced a music video by pop singer Andy Grammar that includes seamless interactivity. YouTube also has its own very simple interactive functionality. http://www.israel21c.org/201011288556/technology/a-tech-revolution-that-lets-you-choose-the-movies-plot

Sources inform ”Globes” that semiconductor giant Broadcom Inc. made its seventh acquisition in Israel a few days ago, acquiring image processing company Sightic Vista Ltd. The acquisition was reportedly for $10-20 million, less than Broadcom normally spends and below the threshold requiring notification. Broadcom confirmed the acquisition, but declined to provide additional details. Sightic declined to comment. Sightic develops software and hardware image processing and enhancement solutions for integration into high quality, miniature digital cameras and video applications. The solutions include algorithms for processing images and multimedia applications for mobile devices. Relatively little was invested in the company by private investors, with no involvement by venture capital funds. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000603868&fid=1725

Israeli automated vehicle identification (AVI) products for fuel delivery developer GasnGo Ltd. is breaking into the US market. After year-long negotiations, the company has signed an exclusive cooepraiton agreement with OPW for the sale of GasnGo’s products in North America. Energy sources estimate the deal at $5 million in the first year, and at tens of millions of dollars over the next five years, the period of the contract. GasnGo is a unit of Petratech International Ltd. Its chairman and principle shareholder is Mordechai Ben-Shach and its CEO is Sagi Cohen. The company’s AVI systems, which OPW will begin to market shortly, can be easily installed into vehicles, and their data encryption prevents fraud at vehicle fleets. A year ago, GasnGo signed a similar exclusive agreement with a company in Mexico. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000602955&fid=1725

Personalized ads solutions developer myThings Ltd. has raised $6 million in its third financing round, led by Deutsche Telekom AG venture capital arm T-Venture. Current investors Accel Partners, Carmel Ventures, Dotcorp Asset Management, and GP Bullhound also participated. myThings CEO Benny Arbel and Udi Zaidman founded the company five years ago to develop technology for the personalized advertising market. Both men are serial entrepreneurs of internet ventures. myThings’ technology enables online retailers and marketers to place personalized ads tailored to internet users’ search habits. The company only uses non-personally identifiable information to perform its retargeting service. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000603181&fid=1725