Tag Archives: Technology

Local Startup making Batteries Smart

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the 21st Century! We’ve got smartphones, smart cars, and smart mouths, but no smart batteries. Unlike our other tech, batteries lack any ability to think and they, as we have all experienced, die way too quickly. Solving this powerful problem is Watt-Learn, who just emerged from the Pittsburgh-based accelerator AlphaLab. Watt-Learn is using machine learning to give batteries the ability to think independently. So, when you need to manage power for things like getting the most out of your home’s solar + battery or have sufficient energy during a thunderstorm, batteries can make it happen without help.

To find out more about this innovative tech, we interviewed Watt-Learn’s CEO, Matt Maroon, and CTO, Matineh Eybpoosh.

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Construction Mapping w/ Drones – Identified Technologies Interview

Pittsburgh is home to a plethora of tech leaders, from Google to Uber, to Duolingo. But, did you know that this City home to a company that maps construction sites with drones? Yeah, drones for construction!

Nowadays, most people are familiar with drones as novelty toys and as something used by the U.S. military. But, few may know that drones are being used in other industries. For construction, Pittsburgh based Identified Technologies offers managed commercial drone solutions. To find out about how drones are being used in construction and to learn more about Identified Technologies, we interviewed their Founder and CEO, Dick Zhang. 

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kinograph

Techburgh: Show and Tell with Code & Supply

This Monday, local Pittsburgh software community, Code & Supply gathered some of their best and brightest in the old Paramount Film Exchange (now a co-working space) to show off what they’re working on.

Matthew Beatty (@beattyml1) gave the developers a tour of his code generation suite called “Codgen“. This little library lets programmers speed up ShowAndTell211their development by helping them generate the same basic code architectures in a way that works on Android, iOS, the web, and anywhere else a developer wants to target, without forcing them to rewrite the same code again and again.

On the softer skills side, Marie Markwell (@duckinator) shared her new blog project, Inatri. Businesses gather personal inforShowAndTell212mation and interact with the public in ways that can rapidly become problematic. After a personal disaster involving her private information being abused to harass her, and interactions with businesses which misgendered her, Marie decided enough was enough. She assembled Inatri as a place where businesses could received guidance on how to gather personal information and use it in a way that respects and protects their users.

Her key point is that the personal biases and assumptions of developers can and does “leak” into the software they develop.

Matthew Elper (@kinographCC discovered a very different problem. While traveling in Jordan, he discovered thousands of film canisters of Jordanian cultural history- and no one knew what was on them or what how to preserve them. He put together his own home-made film digitizer, using off-the-shelf parts, and discovered lost footage of the previous king of Jordan- an act that drew the attention of the current king.

ShowAndTell213Digitizing film is expensive- it’s roughly $1,000 per reel, and standalone machines cost upwards of $250K. Small archives, universities, and libraries simply can’t do that, and so Matthew started the Kinograph project, an open-source platform that uses cutting edge computer-vision software, mixed with off the shelf (and sometimes 3D-printed) hardware. You can follow the instructable for the hardware (although Matt recommends holding off- he has a cheaper, easier to build version in the works), and the get the software from GitHub

His project’s been featured in Make Magazine, and he’s looking for collaborators who are passionate about saving cultural history before it’s forever lost.

Finally, Jackie Vesci (@JVesci) came with her startup project, Tagalong Tour. This project is a passion project among friends that offers walking tours of Pittsburgh, with audio guidance. They’re still experimenting with ShowAndTell214what makes a great tour, but they’ll help you “Meet the Neighbors” in East Liberty, find the highlights of public art in Downtown, or play the best pinball in Lawrenceville.

iPhone Screenshot 2They’re looking to expand their tours, and grow their user base- which is growing at roughly 10% a week. You can check them out at the next OpenStreets, where they’ll have a Karaoke booth, and you can download the app and try it out yourself.

It was a great night to see what’s going on in the Pittsburgh tech scene. If you want to get involved, join Code & Supply on Meetup to learn about these events. Their monthly Build Night is a great place to meet and network with technical folks, and if you’re not a technical person, don’t worry! They have a #StarterSeries event every month, which will get you started. The next one is July 25th, and will cover a key design pattern for building software.

So you have a business idea…

IMG_0263.JPGImage by mbfulk via FlickrPittsburgh has some resources for people that want to start businesses, especially technology businesses.  I have attended some of the work shops at the Tech Council, definitely worth a few hours of your time.

I just wanted to highlight AlphaLab (they have a blog here).  I mentioned AlphaLab recently because they have a really great office on Carson St. and were kind enough to host the reception for this years PodCamp Pittsburgh.

AlphaLab is a project of Innovation Works that provides support to starting companies, if your project is selected AlphaLab helps with funding, office space, some great advisors as well as other support for a seedling of a business.

The deadline to apply for the Winter/Spring 2009 Cycle is October 30, 2008.  The application is not too tricky, you don’t need a full business plan, just some ideas mostly in the technology area but it doesn’t have to be a technology business.  Check out the AlphaLab FAQ for all of the details.

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