Snowed in from the massive storm? Bored off your wazoo? Cabin fever’s got you down? No worries. Download new podcasts from TechVibe Radio on KQV 1410 AM. We just posted clips from Songwhale and BitArmor. Stay safe out there!
TechVibe Radio Podcasts Cure Cabin Fever!
Published February 8, 2010 General , News , PTC Member Leave a CommentTags: 1410 AM, BitArmor, KQV, Pittsburgh Technology Council, Songwhale, TechVibe Radio, Trustwave
The Week That Was in Pittsburgh Technology — 2/1-2/5
Published February 4, 2010 News , PTC Member Leave a CommentTags: Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Technology Council, Techburgher.com, Technology
So we’re mixing it up a little on the “Week that Was” post and we thought it would be fun to pull off a low-budget video update of the more exciting headlines finding their way on to Techburgher.com. Look out Kent Brockman!
Jennifer™ Drives 40+ Percent Growth at Lucas Systems
Published February 4, 2010 PTC Member , Something Cool Leave a CommentTags: Jennifer, Lucas Systems, voicedirected warehouse application
Here’s some encouraging news from PTC member comapny Lucas Systems:
Lucas Systems, Inc., the leading provider of voice-directed warehouse applications for open, mobile computers, today reported strong revenue and profit growth in 2009. Major new customer implementations and add-on business with long-term customers resulted in over 40 percent revenue growth and a sharp increase in net profits for the year.
“Lucas is gaining market share and growing our business in the midst of a tough economic environment, due in large part to our consistent focus on driving operational gains and measurable ROI for our customers,” said Chris Sweeney, Senior Vice President. “While other established voice companies had declining sales in 2009, we added new customers, rolled out new systems to existing customers and strengthened our team to support more growth in 2010. Lucas is winning more new customer business in North America than any other voice provider as retailers and distributors recognize the extraordinary value of our process oriented project approach, our configurable Jennifer™ software, and our flexibility to work with existing material handling and warehouse management systems.”
New customers in 2009 include a leading healthcare distribution company that deployed Jennifer at 40 distribution centers, and a Fortune 50 manufacturer of industrial equipment that is implementing Jennifer at its largest global parts distribution center. In addition, several existing Lucas customers migrated from proprietary voice-only hardware to new systems using versatile, industry standard mobile computers from Motorola and other leading hardware providers. To support its growth, Lucas continues to add sales staff throughout North America, and technical and support staff in its Pittsburgh headquarters and its engineering office in Colorado.
Other milestones in 2009 included the achievement of premier partner status with both Motorola and LXE, and the largest-ever voice implementation on Intermec hardware. Lucas also received a number of industry awards and recognition in 2009. The company was recognized as a Top 100 Supply Chain vendor by Supply and Demand Chain Executive, and as a Top 100 Technology Vendor to the food distribution industry by Food Logistics. In addition, Lucas Systems and qdata, our Canadian solution partner, were awarded the CDN Channel Elite Gold Medal for the Best Collaborative Solution for 2009 by CDN Canada.
Tune in to TechVibe Radio 1410 AM KQV this Saturday
Published February 4, 2010 News , PTC Member Leave a CommentTags: 1410 AM, BitArmor, Epiphany Solar Water Systems, Isidore Foods, KQV, Motionplan, Pittsburgh Technology Council, Songwhale, TechVibe Radio
February will be an awesome month for TechVibe Radio. We’re settling in nicely to our new station at KQV 1410 AM turning up the energy on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings by profiling the area’s most innovative technology companies. Here’s what’s cooking:
Saturday, Feb. 6 @ 1 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 7 @ 8 a.m.
- Hear how Patrick McGregor sold BitArmor to Trustwave. He talks candidly about the process of building his data encryption company over the last seven years.
- Ty Morse of Songwhale will detail how his company is revolutionizing the SMS texting market and the downloading of content to handheld devices.
Saturday, Feb. 20 @ 1 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 21 @ 8 a.m.
- David Eson of Isidore Foods talks about using tech to build his farm food distribution company.
- Tony Joseph of Motionplan fills us in on the latest e-learning technologies.
- Ron Pettengill and Chris Newton tell us all about Epipahny Solar Water Systems.
No access to the AM dial? No worries. You can stream TechVibe at www.kqv.com. Download previous broadcasts right here.
Top Defense Pub Says Neuro Kinetics is Company “To Watch”
Published February 4, 2010 News , PTC Member Leave a CommentTags: brain injuries, Defense Technology International, medical device, Neuro Kinetics, Pittsburgh, Technology
Defense Technology International, an influential publication serving the defense and military markets, says Pittsburgh-based medical device manufacturer Neuro Kinetics, Inc. is a company “to watch” for its research into new methods of detecting traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) in wounded combat soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Neuro Kinetics is one of just eight companies serving the military to be highlighted by the magazine.
“We’re honored to be given this distinction by Defense Technology International,” said J. Howison Schroeder, Neuro Kinetics president and CEO. “We believe our work with the military holds great promise. America’s wounded soldiers deserve the best care possible and we are proud to be playing a part to improve early and accurate diagnosis of brain injuries that can have life-long consequences for them.”
Defense Technology International notes that Neuro Kinetics’ research “is critically important, since an estimated 20% of soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq suffer from mild TBIs.”
Neuro Kinetics is collaborating with military medical specialists at U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory (USAARL) at Fort Rucker (Alabama), Tripler Army Medical Center (Hawaii), The Traumatic Brain Injury Warrior Resilience and Recovery Center at Fort Campbell (Kentucky) and Walter Reed Army Medical Center (D.C.) in the comprehensive research effort.
The coordinated research focuses on using Neuro Kinetics’ I-Portal® NOTC (Neuro-Otologic Test Center) system to evaluate and characterize neuro-otologic and neuro-physiologic, conditions that appear to indicate otherwise hard-to-detect mTBI as a result of blast exposure.
A portion of the research is being supported financially by grants from the T.R.U.E. Research Foundation (www. trueresearch.org), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that assists the military medical community.
A number of other U.S. military hospitals have installed the I-Portal NOTC system to improve diagnosis and monitoring of returning brain-injured military personnel. Other federal government medical facilities, including those operated by the Veterans Administration and the National Institutes of Health, also rely on NKI equipment for conducting daily clinical evaluations of patients as well as undertaking a range of research projects.
GSP Consulting’s Economic Architecture Experts to Present at National Association of Workforce Boards Forum
Published February 3, 2010 News , PTC Member Leave a CommentTags: green jobs, GSP Consulting, Jerry Paytas, National Association of Workforce Boards Forum, Pittsburgh
Dr. Jerry Paytas, GSP Consulting’s Director of Research and Torrey Babson, GSP’s Economic Architect, will present Calculating and Leveraging Your Region’s Greenshare at the 2010 National Association of Workforce Boards Forum in Washington, D.C. on March 6 at 1:00 p.m.
Paytas and Babson will lead a workshop, along with Tim Aldinger, the NAWB’s Special Assistant for Professional and Project Development, as part of the four-day forum, March 6-9 at the Renaissance Washington, D.C. Hotel.
The presentation focuses on leading participants through a discussion on how to calculate the current and projected levels of green jobs in a given region. GSP’s Economic Architecture team has worked with numerous regions over the last two years on defining their respective green economies, and will share its Greenshare methodology as a leading application in quantifying green efforts. As part of the presentation, case studies, including Pittsburgh, will illustrate how regions have leveraged this analysis for economic development purposes.
“There is a tremendous market opportunity within the green economy,” said Paytas. “While there is much excitement over the many possibilities, not all sectors of the green economy will provide the same level of benefit for every community. GSP is trying to give communities specific tools they need to make informed decisions about their particular opportunities and how best to capture the growth of the green economy.”
Guru Answers to Help Plan Projects and Solve Outsourcing Issues
Published February 2, 2010 PTC Member Leave a CommentTags: Freelance workers, Guru Answers, Guru.com, Inder Guglani
Guru.com – the world’s largest online services marketplace – introduced a social media-based tool designed to aid businesses with the due diligence, management, and staffing of projects outsourced to internet-based Freelance workers. By uniquely leveraging the collective knowledge and verifiable performance data of its more than one million global users, Guru Answers is among the first scalable networks tailored specifically to the task of providing the public with insight on project solutions and proven guidance on outsourcing problems.
“The time has come for the global business community to work together on fostering new project staffing solutions,” said Inder Guglani, CEO and Founder for Guru.com. “With Guru Answers, businesses everywhere can access a global network of experts in more than 220 areas of professional specialization for advice that streamlines their research for projects. Additionally, the reputation and experience of each Freelance expert can be confirmed against profile details and unbiased performance statistics so that the Answers offered can be properly assessed.”
A resource for sharing information, help and answers on everything related to Freelance outsourcing, Guru Answers consists of two main, question-and-answer-style forum groups: Project Research and Outsourcing Advice. Project Research offers a venue for businesses to seek skill-based perspectives on all aspects of their emerging projects to better weigh options and set priorities. The Outsourcing Advice forums are organized by topics that address the most frequently asked questions businesses have about how to hire, work with and pay online Freelance-based service providers. Together, the two sections allow businesses to define and evolve a personal approach to strategic project outsourcing that assures the maximum gains in efficiency and success.
Visitors to Guru Answers may post questions and subscribe to topics to receive Answers provided by top skilled Freelancers located everywhere in the world. All Answers submitted are linked to the Guru.com profile of the member offering advice; profile details – such as a Quality Score, Rank, Feedback comments and site usage statistics - provide helpful context for evaluating the trustworthiness of the Answers offered. The Guru.com website provides suggestions for the best use of Project Research as well as tips for leveraging the Outsourcing Advice forums. Participation in Guru Answers is free of charge.
Guru Answers was first introduced to Guru.com’s registered members on December 19, 2009. The online interactions have been increasing daily. The company plans to roll-out additional features, including a Freelance Outsourcing blog, in Spring 2010.
Guglani concluded, “By posting some simple project questions to the Guru Answers community, businesses can quickly gain project planning tips and basic outsourcing training from the proven experts who work on outsourced projects regularly. Guru Answers ultimately aims to help businesses find greater confidence in their outsourcing management so they can best maximize both project investments and overall staffing returns.”
LANXESS employees around the globe celebrate fifth anniversary of listing
Published February 1, 2010 PTC Member Leave a CommentTags: household wastewater treatment plant, LANXESS, Petroflex, reverse osmosis technology, specialty chemicals, synthetic rubber
On February 1, 2010, specialty chemicals group LANXESS will mark the fifth anniversary of becoming a listed company. Some 14,600 employees working at LANXESS sites around the globe will celebrate the day the group was first listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The first price quoted for LANXESS shares on January 31, 2005, stood at EUR 15.75. Five years later, on February 1, 2010, the opening price was EUR 27.42.
Germany’s largest listed specialty chemicals group, which is based in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, continues to write new chapters in its relatively short but eventful history. “Although we started out in unfavorable circumstances and had to overcome a number of difficult phases, we have now secured the company a position of considerable standing in the chemical industry thanks to the commitment and solidarity shown by all of our employees,” said Axel C. Heitmann, Chairman of the LANXESS Board of Management, in the run-up to the anniversary celebrations in Leverkusen. “LANXESS will continue to play a leading role in this sector globally and enjoy prominent market positions thanks to its innovative products,” he added.
Since LANXESS was entered in Cologne’s Commercial Register as an independent entity on January 28, 2005, numerous steps were taken to ensure the company’s rapid and lasting competitiveness in the international arena. (An overview of important events can be found under the following link.
The successful growth strategy on the global markets went hand-in-hand with systematic optimization of the group structures. At the outset, LANXESS was made up of 17 business units organized in four segments. Now, the specialty chemicals group focuses on three segments with 13 business units and matches the profitability of its key competitors. A total sales volume of around EUR 1.5 billion was divested. In parallel to this organizational alignment, new financial and controlling systems were also put in place. “This has created the conditions for us to emerge stronger from the global economic crisis,” remarked Heitmann.
Following successful completion of the transformation, LANXESS set its sights on growth. In order to expand business, the company has systematically focused on the BRIC states. In China, the “LANXESS goes Asia” initiative launched in 2006 has focused on acquisitions, the expansion of existing plants, the creation of joint ventures and the establishment of several research alliances. In Brazil, LANXESS acquired Petroflex, Latin America’s leading synthetic rubber manufacturer, in 2007. In India, LANXESS strengthened its presence by taking over the business assets of Gwalior last year. And in Russia, an independent LANXESS country company was founded last year. “Our growth strategy in the BRIC states faced its first trial in these times of crisis and passed this with flying colors. Asia and China in particular are currently the driving force behind economic development,” said Heitmann.
During the past five years, LANXESS’ product portfolio has been streamlined, boosted by new applications and strengthened by collaborations. As LANXESS demonstrated at the 2009 Innovation Day, the Group focuses on high-quality, technology-driven products and processes, and on sectors with less cyclical businesses. Despite the global crisis, LANXESS increased its research and innovation budget. It currently has 100 projects in the development pipeline.
World Rubber Day – organized by LANXESS in Cologne in September 2009, complete with a scientific symposium – provided an overview of the capabilities of the company’s innovative product portfolio. This event underlined LANXESS’ position as the world’s leading synthetic rubber manufacturer. In the past weeks, LANXESS has also announced the start of work on its new rubber plant in Singapore – at EUR 400 million, the largest investment in the company’s history – and the construction of a new state-of-the-art production facility for water treatment membranes in Bitterfeld, Germany.
The company’s achievements during the past five years are also reflected in the improvement in the company’s key financial figures. In 2004, LANXESS started out with an EBITDA margin pre exceptionals of 6.6 percent. By 2008, this margin increased to 11.0 percent. LANXESS had thus attained its goal of closing the gap on the average figure achieved by its competitors. In 2009, ICIS Chemical Business magazine, the leading information provider for the industry, named LANXESS “Company of the Year” due to its “outstanding economic development in a challenging 2008.”
LANXESS focuses on sustainable solutions and is investing in climate-friendly technologies and processes all over the world. It has won a number of awards for its commitment in this area. For example, the new waste air treatment unit at the Port Jérôme site in France won the “Prix Entreprises et Environnement” in 2009. The panel of judges described the regenerative thermal oxidizer – RTO for short – as an exemplary green production process. At the end of 2009, LANXESS received an award in India for its water resource management. The judges were impressed by the company’s household wastewater treatment plant based on reverse osmosis technology.
The Week that Was in Pittsburgh Technology — 1/25-1/29
Published January 29, 2010 News , PTC Member Leave a CommentTags: Avere Systems, Bayer, Circuits, Greg Babe, Pittsburgh, Technology, TechVibe Radio
It’s hard to believe that we are already winding down the month of January. This final week was chock full of tech news from local companies.
Avere Systems is on a hot streak this month. The startup has set new performance benchmarks in tiered NAS with its Demand-Driven Storage™ solutions, with its recently unveiled FXT Series. The introduction of the new FXT 2700 tiered NAS appliance leverages the extreme random read performance of Flash SSD to meet the highest application demands of performance-oriented customers and is the first from Avere to include an internal tier of Single Level Cell Flash Solid State Disk, delivering up to a 10x improvement in random read access for performance-critical applications such as 3D rendering, chip design and other CAD/CAE applications, database acceleration and seismic data analysis for the oil and gas industry, to name a few. According to Avere, deploying an FXT 2700 appliance is a simple, fast and effective answer to the data access speed issue for these performance-centric users.
Greg Babe, President and CEO of Bayer Corporation and Bayer MaterialScience LLC, was named the 2009 “CEO Communicator of the Year” by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Pittsburgh Chapter. Babe accepted the award at the annual PRSA Renaissance Awards Ceremony on January 21. He was honored for his excellence in communications as the leader of Bayer’s U.S. operations and for his ongoing efforts to promote Pittsburgh worldwide.
Circuits, LLC’s engineering team released the rigid-flex PCB manufacturing operations to production to offer a more dependable and cost-effective alternative for their customers. Rigid- flex PCBs enable weight-reduction and more compact packaging with improved performance ideal for many military, aerospace and medical applications.
Circuits, LLC is well-equipped to take on rigid-flex PCB processing. The 50,000 square foot fabricating and testing facility houses a built-to-purpose, flow-optimized workspace specifically designed and equipped to produce consistent, high-quality flexible printed circuits with minimum handling and transport. Techburgher took a tour of the faclity this past Tuesday. The PCB manufacturing facility features a fully-integrated Class 1,000 clean room, a laser driller/router and a custom plating line configured for the production of complex circuits. It’s really cool to see a small advanced manufacturer just getting out of the blocks. Very encouraging!
Don’t forget to tune in to TechVibe Radio(tm) on 1410 AM KQV this weekend. We’re on Saturday at 1 p.m. and Sunday at 8 a.m. It’s a rebroadcast of last week’s show, featuring NewBold, B-Three Solutions and Jr. PghTech Women’s Lego League.
Carnegie Mellon Releases Data on Haitian Creole to Hasten Development of Translation Tools
Published January 28, 2010 News , PTC Member Leave a CommentTags: Carnegie Mellon, Haiti, Pittsburgh, translation, Translators Without Borders
In response to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University’s Language Technologies Institute (LTI) have publicly released spoken and textual data they’ve compiled on Haitian Creole so that translation tools desperately needed by doctors, nurses and other relief workers on the earthquake-ravaged island can be rapidly developed.
Since Carnegie Mellon began to make the data publicly available last week, a team at Microsoft Research has used it to help develop an experimental, web-based system for translating between English and Haitian Creole . Translators Without Borders, a not-for-profit association based in Paris, plans to distribute a medical triage dictionary to doctors in Haiti once that data has been converted into a readable format. LTI researchers, likewise, have begun working on their own translation system for Haitian Creole.
Although French is the official language of Haiti and is spoken by elites, Haitian Creole is the most widely spoken language in Haiti, said Robert Frederking, LTI senior systems scientist. Haitian Creole is based on French, but has evolved substantially since Haitians overthrew the French colonists more than 200 years ago. Word meanings have drifted and the language incorporates some African syntax.
“French speakers can sort of puzzle through it, but Creole isn’t penetrable if you don’t know French,” Frederking said. Few translation resources are available for the language, he added.
The Carnegie Mellon data base for Haitian Creole was created in the late 1990s for Diplomat, a project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The project was headed by Jaime Carbonell, LTI director, and focused on developing portable, speech-to-speech translation devices that could be deployed rapidly for Haitian Creole and other languages of special interest to the Department of Defense. Frederking and Alex Rudnicky, principal systems scientist in the Computer Science Department, served as co-principal investigators.
A prototype Haitian Creole translation system was delivered to the U.S. Army, but “as far as we know, nobody ever field-tested it,” Frederking said. The project ended in the late 1990s, but LTI retained the data compiled and produced for the project
Since the Jan. 12 earthquake, LTI researchers decided to begin work on an updated translation system for Haitian Creole that would incorporate the latest translation technologies. To aid other groups pursuing parallel efforts worldwide, they also opted to release the data publicly at www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/haitian/, making it available with minimal restrictions. In addition to the Diplomat material, other data developed by researchers at LTI and elsewhere are being added to the site as they become available.
Given the extreme poverty of Haiti, “nobody is going to make money on a Haitian Creole translator,” Frederking said. “But translation systems could be an important tool, both for the relief workers now involved in emergency response and in the long-term as rebuilding takes place.”
LTI, which focuses on such topics as machine translation, speech processing, information retrieval, text mining and computer-assisted language learning, is one of seven academic units in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science.
