Buzz

Working with Seegrid, Giant Eagle was instrumental in the development of an unmanned pallet truck that transports products using vision-guided technology.

“We now have seven robots deployed at Giant Eagle. It is an out-of-the-box robot that is very easy to program,” said Michael Hasco, chief growth officer for Seegrid.

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In the latest in her excellent series of blog posts for the New York Times, Pittsburgh nurse Theresa Brown writes about a patient who was literally losing his own skin and makes the case for patient choices in health care.

"Health care choices made by patients only rarely resemble a penny-wise buyer who, say, needs a car and must choose between a used Buick, a new Hyundai or a shiny new Mercedes," she writes. Of the two presidential candidates plans for health care, one has it right.

Read the personal story and her perspective in her blog here.

A group of 36 Pittsburgh high school students underwent journalism boot camp training to better report on numerous stories from the four day One Young World summit. See the Pop City story about Pittsburgh Youth Media here.

See all their stories here.

From singer Joss Stone to former President Bill Clinton, a star-studded line up greeted the delegates of the One Young World summit in Pittsburgh last Thursday at the opening ceremonies.

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"Growth is a mantra that cities, as well as nations and states, everywhere quest after," says Richard Florida in this article. "A growing number of economists caution that growth for growth’s sake does not necessarily equate to higher living standards or increased happiness. A blue-ribbon international commission headed by Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen has called for new, broader measures of economic performance and social progress. Plus, not all "growth" is the same. I've previously called attention to "growth without growth," the misguided notion that adding population equals economic growth. 

"A new report [PDF] from my colleagues at the Martin Prosperity Institute provides a fresh take on this issue. It looks at how regions contribute to four key categories of regional economic development — population, innovation, creativity, and economic output. Basically, the study calculated a metro's share of the U.S. total for each of the four categories. The table below, from the study, charts the metros that top the list in each of the four categories. It lists the category that each metro does best in."

Pittsburgh ranks #5 in creativity.


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See the newest video release from The Garment District which features Pop City's own Jennifer Baron. Video by Ryan Emmett.

Click here to see the video.

"The most basic thing that photography does is visually describe what can be seen. The problem facing photographers of the Marcellus Shale Documentary Project is that what they wish to describe cannot be seen — an invisible gas buried deep underground. They have struggled to document the effect of the natural gas drilling commonly known as fracking," reports the New York Times.

And yet, the project is deemed a success. The director is Pop City's own photographer, Brian Cohen.

Read the story and see the photos here.

"Branding Brand, a startup powering the mobile commerce for sites and mobile apps from – you guessed it – big-name brands, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding and has now brought in Jeffrey R. Hennion as President. Hennion is the former head of e-commerce at GNC and Dick’s Sporting Goods, and will be helping Branding Brand manage its global marketing and e-commerce functions.
The Series A round, announced last week, was led by Insight Venture Partners, and saw participation from CrunchFund and Eastern Advisors. It’s the first outside investment for the company, which had been completely bootstrapped until now. The additional capital will be used to fund customer acquisition, technology development, and operations, the company reports.
The Pittsburgh-based company was founded in 2008 by three friends from Carnegie Mellon University, Joey Rahimi, Christopher Mason, and Christina Koshzow..."

Read the full story here in Tech Crunch.

For one of America’s prettiest cities, Pittsburgh, says Yahoo Travel which just named Ten Unexpectedly Romantic Cities.

"Forget the smoky, long-gone steel mills, and focus on the graceful beauty of Pittsburgh, where the Allegheny and Monongahela meet to form the Ohio River at pretty Point State Park. For optimum romance, check into the Priory Hotel—a former Benedictine monastery on the city’s North Side, with just 42 cozy rooms, a fireplace in the lobby, and an on-call shuttle to downtown. Guests can stroll to nearby Max’s Allegheny Tavern, a classic with its beveled glass mirrors and hand-carved bar, to enjoy German specialties: The wienerschnitzel and sauerbraten get great kudos. Visit the nearby Pittsburgh-native’s Andy Warhol Museum, to see such Pop Art classics as his Campbell Soup Can, Portraits of Marilyn Monroe and his own self-portraits. Catch a Pirates game in summer. Take a cliff-hugging ride up the Duquesne Incline to the top of Mt. Washington—a popular place to propose—with fabulous views of the city below.  Drive out to nearby Moon Township, for dinner at Hyeholde, a castle in the woods, surrounded by lush gardens.  Choose the chef’s table option, if you’d like to dine in the kitchen."

Read the story here.

No need to leave the cities on this list from NBC News that offer plenty of leaf peeping right in the urban core. Pittsburgh makes the list for this reason:

“You don’t have to go that far for amazing views, or for opportunities to enjoy the sites, the sounds and the smells of fall,” when visiting Pittsburgh and its some 170 urban parks—all within the city limits—according to Michael Sexauer, vice president of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. Riverview Park, built in the early 1890s on one of the highest points in the county, “offers some fantastic views of the changing foliage, not only in the park, but beyond,” Sexauer said. When in the heavily wooded Frick Park, the city’s largest, “you don’t realize you are in an urban setting,” he added. A quick drive to Schenley Park provides panoramic vistas of the downtown and easy access to walking trails. In October, Gateway Clipper Fleet offers a number of journeys to “experience the beautiful colors of fall from the decks of our riverboat,” with food and entertainment, like half-day Fall Foliage Cruises ($50 for adults, $16 for children) and several nine hour cruises along the Ohio River. Venture Outdoors, a nonprofit, will sponsor its Fall Foliage Ride on the Great Allegheny Passage on Oct. 7—an easy 22-mile round-trip to "celebrate the peak of fall foliage as we bike the oldest section of the Great Allegheny Passage." Riders will travel to Confluence, “a charming valley village,” where they can eat packed lunches or choose from a list of bike-friendly restaurants ($15 for non-members).

See the rest of the cities here.

"Pittsburgh's identity has always been its work," writes local author Christine O'Toole in Architectural Record. "Thirty years ago, when it lost the steel mills that had forged its 20th-century reputation, it became part of the Rust Belt, with a fractured economy and three polluted rivers: the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny."

Today? It's a different story as we all know. It's great that the rest of the world is catching on due to articles like these.

Read the full story here.