Anyone who drives in Pittsburgh knows the annoyance of a random bump as your tire falls into a pothole. If you take the same route most days, you may even have a system of avoidance. Before the city had mercy on the stretch of Forbes between Shady and Braddock, I spent the 5-minute stretch switching lanes half a dozen times to get around missing chunks of pavement.
Pothole-like problems are bound to happen in any city. Although some concerned citizens may call the non-emergency services 311 line, most of us go frustratingly on our way.
Well fellow suffers, YinzCam just made telling officials about city-related issues easier. iBurgh is a free iPhone app that enables users to take a photo of whatever is getting in your way, slowing you down, or generally causing amuck in the city. The site is then geotagged and sent to the city’s server. iBurgh is also on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, and the city hopes to make it available on other mobile devices soon.
Pittsburgh is the first city to have its own iPhone app, beating out other interested cities such as Boston, New York, DC, and San Francisco. The launch falls in line with Councilman Bill Peduto’s initiative of partnering with local tech companies to make the city the first e-democracy.
If you read this blog you will know we always have a lot of fun with the Startups that come out of Alpha lab. This summer’s batch of companies looks exciting! We will be meeting and interviewing these companies in the coming weeks.
Here is a list of the companies with descriptions from the Alpha Lab website:
Fooala
Fooala enables online ordering capabilities for restaurants through their own websites and a network of partner applications. Restaurants can join Fooala with no upfront costs or equipment purchase requirement.
CloudFab
GearHeadz LLC is working to create CloudFab, which connects job shops with spare capacity to customers seeking their services. They are an online marketplace that provides lower costs, automated quoting, integrated payment & escrow, and an arbitration system.
LeftRight Studios
LeftRight Studios is a mobile application development company. We are currently developing unique mobile games exclusively for the iPhone. Our first title, smackBOTS (available through the iTunes and iPhone Appstore) is an arcade style robot fighting game in a single player version with robot customization. Our upcoming multi-player version of smackBots will feature in-app purchasing of downloadable content packs for more robot customization including weapons, armors and robot heads.
Vivo
Vivo is a web-based video broadcasting service that provides users a private, customizable environment for sharing events.
NavPrescience
NavPrescience is developing advanced methods for learning drivers’ routing preferences and destinations by observing their frequent driving routes. This technology enables navigation solutions that automatically adapt to each driver’s navigation preferences and provide relevant information (such as traffic reports) to the driver based on the future roadways and destinations he or she will visit.
Zipano
Zipano aspires to empower users of social networking sites and other information sharing services (including location sharing applications) to better control and manage who they share their personal information with. Their unique platform offers the user better ways to express his privacy preferences and enables the user to monitor with whom his information is shared. This functionality has been shown to result in higher levels of user comfort and willingness to selectively share information. We demonstrate the capabilities of our platform with Locaccino, a fully functional location sharing application, developed at Carnegie Mellon University.
