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No-one understands security like the Israelis, that's why some of the world's best new innovative airport security technologies are being developed in Israel.

Israel and the United States are developing new security systems ti inspect airline passengers. This joint effort its creating a system that could detect substances used in explosives, or chemical weapons without having to open the passengers luggage. And it could be integrated into scanners, magnetometers and hand-held devices. Its purpose is to inspect both passengers and luggage, without the use of full body scan.

This is an interesting article about the tourism industry in Israel. They are pretty much explaining that terrorism is going to happen, but it's the preventative measures we take that are going to help.

HoneyBook was created by a newlywed couple who found it difficult to plan and share the memories of their unforgettable experience. HoneyBook is a combination of honeymoon and booking. According to the article, HoneyBook is a "technological hub for professional event planners and the contractors they hire-where brides and grooms to be(of other customers coordinating a multi-pronged operation) can comfortably manage all facets of their event from any web-enabled device."

I found this article very interesting. It deals with the development of a new website that incorporates all facets of event planning into one central hub. The website was coined "honey book" a conjunction between honeymoon and booking. It's creator Naama Alom, got the idea when she, herself, was planning her own wedding. She realized that there was not one place where she could store all of her event, vendor, and decor information. "Honey book" is also a medium to share your event highlights with family and friends. Naama decided that Facebook was not sufficient enough and when investors expressed interest, Naama and her husband packed up and moved from Israel to the United States. The US housed the billion-dollar target market that "honey book" was developed for.

This article contains information about the detection of data stealing malware by researchers in an Israel-based company (Seculert). Follow up research discovered that malware was found in POS systems in hotels and other businesses as well. It is believed that the payment hubs are the next cybercriminal targets. In the article, it explains what the malware was and how to identify it. Researchers agree that it doesn't directly infect the systems, but was created to make analysis difficult. Though it is relieving that this malware had been detected, it shows the importance of higher security for POS systems. So many payments are made through these systems. Any attacks can jeopardize the privacy of customers' payment information and company information. This could lead to a distrust issue and could end badly for companies. So, the security definitely needs improving. However, it should be remembered that hackers get smarter daily. So, information will not always be safe. This leads to the need of companies to constantly improve their security. It would be a good start.

This article shows an explanation of people with metal placed in them because of surgery. The alarm will go off with the several types of metals, although there is no type of card or identification that will help you pass through TSA easily because it is easy to create one of the cards by hand. If the detector goes off, you will have to be searched regardless.

This blog article relates to the merger between Mariott and Starwood Hotels. For decades Starwood hotels had been investing in a technology transformation program to move Starwood properties from their old mainframe technology to a more modern reservation system called Valhalla. Valhalla is an all in one system and manages reservations, call center, eCommerce Web, Property management and Rev mgmt systems. One would expect Mariott to migrate their current properties to Starwoods PMS however this was not the case. After the merger Mariott announced that they would be migrating the 1200 acquired Starwood properties to their reservation system. I don't understand why Mariott would do this as this would be a backward move. It's a bit strange because their purchase price for Starwood factored in a $500 million Starwood IP technology value which was not owned by Mariott.