If you’re lucky enough to live in Pittsburgh, you can report stuff like potholes, graffiti and other everyday annoyances straight to city hall via an iPhone app called iBurgh.
Peeved Pittsburghers first download the app, gratis on iTunes. First time users need to fill in name, phone number, email and home address — stored automatically for logging future complaints.
Users snap pics of traffic gridlock, abandoned cars or whatever. The photos are geotagged and sent immediately to the city complaint hotline 311. Officials hope that if enough people use the app (they already get about 200 rants a day) they’ll have a cluster map of trouble areas to plan for future maintenance and repairs.
There were a few snafus as iPhone wielding citizens tried complaining via smartphone when the service debuted yesterday — a server restart was necessary at one point — but at least one user managed to report that pothole successfully.
It’s the first app available on iTunes from a Carnegie Mellon spin-off whose other product was mobile video technology for sports events, called “yinzcam” that let users at hockey games pick what to zoom in on with their iPhones.
Via AP
