Photos: Land of start-ups

Early electronic pens from other companies required special paper. Pegasus licenses its technology to Pentel, among others.

Gemini, one of Israel's leading venture capital firms, has invested in Mirage.

The technology was devised by Amos Golan, a former officer in an antiterrorism unit, and Asaf Nadel, formerly with the Israeli secret service. The technology was invented in Israel, but corporate offices were moved to the United States, a common arrangement.

"Sludge is a major problem in the world. Cities pay $50 a ton or more to get rid of it," he said. "And it's good-quality light oil."

The company got its start in one of the government-sponsored incubators and is currently trying to raise $1 million, Mor said.

The diagram shows how it works. Electromagnetic energy is directed at the top of the letter "C" embossed on a hypothetical product that has been sprayed with CrossID chemicals. Signals bouncing back tell what chemicals from CrossID's cookbook are missing and which are present. The signals then get translated to 1s and 0s and fed into a computer as an ID.

"The pattern (of the chemicals) is not important. What is important is their presence or absence," said CrossID CEO Moshe Glickstein. "We even talked to a professor who said it would be difficult and time-consuming to come up with forgeries."

As more retailers adopt the approach to combat counterfeiting, the technology could eventually be used as a cheap substitute for radio frequency identification tags, Glickstein said. Putting a chemical signature in an item will cost a fraction of a cent. RFID tags are still priced way above the idealized 5 cent mark, he noted.

"Idesia's technology is based on dynamic electro physiological characteristics of the living body," the company says. What? Basically, the company says that environmental and genetic factors give everyone a distinct cardio pattern. The electrical signals given off by the heart beating can be used in authentication. The company says it is superior to other biometrics--it has a 99 percent accuracy rate in field tests--and readers can be incorporated into notebooks, laptops and other devices. (You touch a sensor with your finger and the cardio information is extracted from there). Aladdin Knowledge Systems will make a peripheral for a PC sometime in 2007.

BrainsGate has come up with an electrode that, when inserted into the mouth of stroke victims, can increase the blood flow to the brain in the crucial early part of the stroke. Additionally, BrainsGate is testing its NeuroPath system to see if it can help ameliorate brain cancer. The company has raised $22.5 million to date.

Solel's system consists of a liquid-filled pipe in a large mirror. Sunlight strikes the mirror; the mirror heats the liquid; the heat from the liquid creates steam; and the steam powers a generator. It requires a lot of sunlight, but a system installed in the Mojave Desert in California still works. The 350-megawatt facility produces 1 percent of California's electricity. Solel is now seeking contracts in Spain, Portugal and Florida.

Pictured here is one of the company's more recent inventions: a garbage can that can contain a bomb blast. Approximately 10,000 of these garbage cans have been installed in places like Logan Airport and O'Hare Airport and all along the Boston-New York Amtrak line. The idea is that terrorists may try to put a bomb in a trash can someday, but may not realize it's not a standard trash can. Bomb fragments will not come out the sides. The cans cost from $1,000 to $7,000, depending on the strength.

The unmanned aerial vehicle was invented in Israel, and the country remains home to many of the leading manufacturers of the machines.