Category Archives: Technology

Festival of Geek Meets Green Meets Arts on Penn Ave – Friday April 2nd

Since tomorrow is the first Friday of the month – it is First Friday’s on Penn Avenue – where business and galleries stay open late and have special programs for the evening.Gagi Main-1

This Friday is also the Geek Arts/Green Innovators (GA/GI) Festival.  One of the great things about Pittsburgh, and I feel like I say this often, but it is true and worth repeating is how different communities come together to create innovation.  GA/GI celebrates the intersection of geek and green in the arts.

The organizers of the festival have assembled an impressive line up of people and organizations doing impressive things in the areas of technology and the enviroment in Pittsburgh.  See the entire line up below.  If you are not familiar with the Penn Avenue Arts coridor – start at the Pittsburgh Glass Center at 5471 Penn Ave and go from there.  The Glass Center always has interesting demos on first Fridays and a number of the GA/GI events will be there.

A few things that are definitly worth a stop:

  • Voluto Coffee – we <3 Voluto and they know coffee
  • Grow Pittsburgh – Twilight Farmer’s Market
  • Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest –  Art Display by John Metzler
  • The Power Flower by Art Energy Design,
  • CMU ChargeCar
    • Check out the PopCity article about ChargeCar here.

But honestly – all of these are great organizations and it is nice that they have lined up so many great organizations and activities in one place.

GA/GI Festival Details

5472 Penn Ave,Pittsburgh, PA, 15224
April, 2, 2010, 5:00 pm – 11:00 pm
Festival location within 4800-5500 Penn Avenue…OR start at 5472 Penn Avenue–The Pigh Glass Center!

Website and Facebook

CLUSTER 1 (near Pittsburgh Glass Center 5472 Penn Avenue)
Pittsburgh Glass Center
A “Hot Jam” in the  Hot Shop;
Exhibit: “From the Earth to the Fire and Back”;
Live Entertainment:  Life In Balance,
The Rusty Bagpiper, DJ Stevey B of iParty Productions,
Cello Fury (Formerly Cello Fourte) and a Fashion Show “Pedal to the Metal” with DJ James Gyre @ 9:30 pm

Enjoy a light nosh and wine made in Lawwrenceville–with Duane Rieder of Engine House 25!

@Glass Lofts “Eco Living” – NOW OPEN! Pittsburgh’s hottest, address, view a show space by Emphasis Interiors and a variety of art exhibitions: the Society of Sculptors, celebrating their 75th Birthday. Featured Artists: W. Johansen,  V. LaValle,
A. Almarza,  J. Fisher,  A. Azoury, E. Singer, M. Gregio, Carnegie Mellon Entertainment Center Global, and  Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

@ Dance Alloy Peformance @ 7 pm  5530 Penn Ave “Tap Into the Possibilites” (cost $7 admission)

Voluto Coffee hosting artist R. Snow” Open Until 10 pm

A Glass Clearnce by Shermise hosting an intallation by Evolve Architechs “Fast Forward to 2020” (Also showing in Cluster D)

Edge Studios “Exquiste Corps” @ 5411 Penn Ave.

Creative Fitness /Go work out a sweat free for 20 minutes @ 5406 Penn Ave

CLUSTER 2 ( near Quiet Storm 5430 Penn Avc)
Grow Pittsburgh “Twilight Farmer’s Market
Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest Art Display by John Metzler
Turner Dairy Farm
Garfield Farm and Friends
Student Conservation Association
Sprout Fund GA/GI Showcase: Replay My Play and The Hill District Green Print Plan
Quiet Storm Cafe /Benefit Dinner for Grow Pittsburgh (Reservations preferred)

CLUSTER 3 (Family Dollar Sector /Intersection of N. Pacific Ave and Penn to 113 S. Pacific)–Great Family Venue!!!
The Power Flower by Art Energy Design, ZipCar, CTSI Science Mobile Lab, CMU ChargeCar, Verizon Fios, (Hula)Hoop Union, The Pittsburgh Chess Club, EcoCents, Allegheny County Library Association “One Book”, Pittsburgh Technology Council, Global Links, Creative Reuse hands-on activities;  Save the Igloo,  Yellow Black and Green Pittsburgh, Green Gear Pedicabs; The Trash Fairy–a salvage art storyteller, and others!

CLUSTER 4 (Penn Avene and Winebiddle sector)
Awesome Books–Book Release Party for C. Leach and  E.McNutt
Laura McLaughin–Community mosaic project
ARTica Gallery w  J. Vachon Salvage Quilt Project and C. Dregalla, artist
Irma Freeman Center–“Anitquated & Future or Imaginary Technology
Ian Ingram @ All God’s Creatures Grooming (see window)
Image Box–featuring exhibit “Green, Green Grass” by J. Visnesky
Most Wanted Fine Art–J. Lysak and the Edinboro University Print Shop
Mixed Media Terrariums by S. Wojdylak
Mondern Formations / Annual Spring Salon and guest Electric Owl
International Children’s Museum / Mandala art work
Space Robots and Other Creations
R. J. Walters Law Office “Tango” demo
5000 Penn Ave  and Gross Street Exhibitions by P. Villalobos Echeverria
Tweek clothing/ 10% for College Students on entire shop
B. Ziller’s Beautification Project–Paint colorful boards for abandoned RE

Punked by Google – Google Fiber a Hoax

Google Inc.
Image via Wikipedia

So a few weeks ago we blogged about the Pittsburgh goes Google project. Well it turns out that the Google Fiber Network that sounded too good to be true is really too good to be true.

The folks at Google took a page out of the Ashton Kutcher‘s playbook with Google Fiber project.   Turns out the whole thing was just a joke and Google executives were stunned to see the lengths that local mayors and residents would go to to attract Google’s attention.  To win over the hearts of Google – last week Pittsburgher’s spelled out the word “Google” on Forbes Ave.  Check out the photo of this elaborate gesture from the Post-Gazette here.

The Mayor of Sarasota recently jumped into a shark tank at Mote Marine Aquarium to drawn attention to Sarasota’s bid for Google fiber.  (If you ever visit the Sarasota area – which happens to be near where the Pirates are for spring training – I would suggest you make a stop at Mote Aquarium to see the manatees).

Google executives have decided that things were getting out of hand – especially when they heard the Mayor of Pittsburgh was thinking of changing his name to Mayor Googlestahl and decided to reveal the truth about the project.  You can see the press release from the Google Fiber Team here. Continue reading →

#Pittsburgh – Hashtags for Pittsburgh

Twitter hashtags
Image by Search Engine People Blog via Flickr

Chris Brogan (he writes a great blog on social media that I follow daily) had a post last week on how to help in Haiti – in the post he links to a great post – Designing Hashtags for Emergency Response, by Chris Messina from the blog Factory City.  Messina’s post offers some great thoughts on creating hashtags for twitter and he links to the Epic Project EPIC from the University of Colorado at Boulder – which is working on Tweak the Tweet – a standard group of hashtags for tweeting information in Haiti.

What the hashtag? If you are not a regular on Twitter you are probably reading this and wondering what on earth does a hashtag have to do with anything on Twitter or Haiti.  Since I have gotten a few phone calls and emails asking about this in the past week let me take a moment to review the hashtag. Continue reading →

Whuffaoke = Social Capital Meets Karaoke – The Karaoke Road Trip Stops in Pittsburgh

The Whuffie Factor = final cover!
Image by miss_rogue via Flickr

What the Whuffie?

Whuffie is a term used to explain social capital in a new book called The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt. I am reading this book now and it is a really interesting look at how social capital is playing an increasing role in business today and how social media connects people and helps to build social capital. I think the community that has grown around IheartPGH definitely has some Whuffie factor too. Learn more about the book at TheWhuffieFactor.com

What does this have to do with Karaoke?

Tara and her friends are on a cross country road trip in an RV with a karaoke machine and they are making a stop in

Pittsburgh this Saturday.

The story unfolds….Five friends: Tara Hunt, Tony Bacigalupo, Alex Hillman, Emma Persky, Karen Hartline plus their furry friend Ridley load up a moving truck and RV with Tara’s worldly possessions and a karaoke machine — complete with costumes and stage — and venture across America, starting in San Francisco and ending in Montreal.

Whuffaoke SF - 3
Image by Cirne via Flickr

Learn more about the story of Whuffaoke at Whuffaoke.com

Whuffaoke in Pittsburgh

Saturday, July 25, 2009
7:30-10pm at Pittsburgh Technology Council Office
http://www.whuffaoke.com/tour/pittsburgh/
RSVP on Facebook

More about the event on the Techburger blog

More ways to Connect

Continue reading →

Born in Pittsburgh – Chalkbot is Making a Mark on the Tour de France

OMG! I want my own chalkbot.
Image by Mike Monteiro via Flickr

A few weeks ago the folks at DeepLocal sent me an email about Chalkbot – I took a look at the link to the web page about the robot and thought it was pretty interesting as they are often working on interesting projects. Fast forward a few weeks and the folks from DeepLocal and chalkbot have made the trip to Europe for the Tour de France. (I am really interested to know how one gets a robot to Europe).

Chalkbot as on commenter on CrunchGear put it is “a chalkjet printer, mega-sized and towed by a pick-up truck! Awesome!” Nike has taken chalkbot from Pittsburgh to the Tour de France to print out messages in chalk that users can submit on their website.

To see some great pictures of Chalkbot in action check out their twitpic photos and follow along on Twitter – www.twitter.com/chalkbot. You can also follow the Cahlkbot via DeepLocal’s David Evans who is blogging from France here – http://francebot.tumblr.com/ (Hi David!).

Here are the folks from DeepLocal talking about Chalkbot

Check out some of the early Chalkbot tests here –http://chalkbot.wordpress.com/. More coverage of Chalkbot from BikePgh and Pop City Media. Continue reading →