Israeli Ingenuity - A Credit Card USB Drive!

Do you carry a USB key (when it isn't Shabbat or a khag)? Have you ever mislaid it? Well, an Israeli inventor by the name of Alon Atsmon, CEO of Walletex, has come up with a solution - a USB storage device in the shape of a credit card. Since people tend to take care of credit cards, he figured that it might be a better storage solution.

Israel 21c reports:
"I think the card shape is the future," Walletex CEO Alon Atsmon told ISRAEL21c. "If it is much smaller it gets lost. The most convenient place is in your wallet."

Atsmon, a graduate of the Israel Defense Forces' prestigious Talpiot technology program and then the Israeli Air Force, is very familiar with card technology. In 1998 he set up a company called ComSense to develop a battery-powered card for authentication purposes. ComSense was later sold to Israel company Beepcard, but the credit-card shape stuck in Atsmon's mind, and in 2004 he established Walletex to revolutionize the USB drive market.

"The challenge was to make everything thin," he explains from the company's offices in Rishon Lezion. "This is the thinnest USB drive in the world."

Great idea, isn't it. Find out more on Israel 21c. Celebrate Israeli ingenuity and check it out.

Nazi Records of Hate Just Released - Over 60 Years after the End of the War

While surfing the web, I found and article about something interesting. For years, Germany has known what happened to some 17.5 million people during World War II and the Nazi genocide. They have known all along what happened to millions of lives, but have refused to release the information. No matter who asked, the Red Cross, governments and others, including the families. Now, people can begin to know.

Here are some quotes from the Guardian's article "Nazi death camp records reveal fate of millions":

After the war 11 nations formed a commissions to look after the records, but as the decades passed the tracing service metamorphosed into an archive, processing individual requests for information about relatives and digitalising millions of papers.

Researchers have long called for the archive to be opened to build up a detailed picture of where people went: into exile, hiding or concentration camps. But Germany always argued against making them available, saying that doing so would breach its strict privacy laws.
....
The Washington Post has accused Germany and the Red Cross of conspiring to keep historians out of the archive. It said: "The backlog of victims waiting for information about their lives is now in the hundreds of thousands, evidence that the archivists hold back documents is overwhelming, survivors' groups in Germany and elsewhere are protesting and historians are demanding better access."

What will happen now?

According to the article, "The records will now be copied and distributed within the 11 commission countries, including Britain, where their sensitive content will be dealt with according to local laws, said Miss Zypries's spokesman yesterday."

I pray that families may now have some peace.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful end of Pesach.

On Today's Attack

Here are some links on today's hateful bombing:

Allison Kaplan Sommer's post

Ha'aretz summary article

Lisa's powerful eye-witness post, including pictures

May the Holy One send healing to the wounded and comfort to those whose lives have been forever changed.

Passover Tragedy Again

Flashes of the nightmere of a few years ago....bombings on Pesach....hateful responses to freedom...death in a time of life and renewal....