June 20, 2008 | 8:53 am

Guitar Hero, Rock Band co-creator is Tel Aviv native

Posted by Adam Wills

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The worldwide video game phenomenon of “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” can be partly traced back to an MIT grad from Tel Aviv, Eran Egozy. Listed as one of Time’s 100 most influential people of 2008, his love of music came from his childhood in Israel. But given his musical passion, one might expect that Egozy would have developed something like “Symphony Hero.” He took up the clarinet—not the guitar—as a seventh-grader. When his chemist parents—who met on the Technion campus in Haifa—asked him what instrument he wanted to play, his mind flashed to a series on musical instruments he watched on Israeli television.

“It seemed kind of cool, so when my parents asked me if I wanted to learn an instrument, I said, ‘Sure, the clarinet.’”

The Boston-based Egozy, 36, has performed in a variety of symphonies and currently plays in the Radius Ensemble. He recently returned to Israel for the first time in 10 years and was stunned at the high-tech developments made during his absence. He also found his Hebrew a little rusty.

“I still can get by, I still speak Hebrew casually with my parents and with some Israeli musician friends who are in the US. But being back in Israel demonstrated to me that my Hebrew is not quite what it used to be,” he laughs. (Jerusalem Post)

June 11, 2008 | 8:17 am

Google Jew in Space!

Posted by Adam Wills

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has booked himself a ride to space courtesy of Space Adventures, a Virginia company that arranges trips to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz rocket. His journey is scheduled for 2011.

What, he can’t wait for the Virgin Galactic joy ride?

Brin has a $5 million investment in Space Adventures, and the trip has cost others between $20 million and $40 million. No word on how much it’s costing him. But The New York Times reports there’s a little wrinkle that needs to be ironed out:

“Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Russian space agency, has said repeatedly that the seats for tourists could disappear in 2010, when the size of the station crew expands to six from three and requires more of the available seats on the Soyuz.

“Space Adventures has seats reserved for flights to the space station this October and April 2009.”

Then again, when that much Google money talks, who isn’t going to listen?

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