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RITUniversityNews uploaded a new video
(1 week ago)
WHEC-TV (Channel 10) reports on the Support Our Servicemen and Servicewomen holiday drive held at Rochester Institute of Technology.
The holidays ca...
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WHEC-TV (Channel 10) reports on the Support Our Servicemen and Servicewomen holiday drive held at Rochester Institute of Technology.
The holidays can be a difficult time for military personnel serving overseas, and for many theres nothing like the taste of home. Our camera stopped by RIT today where the holiday S.O.S., or Support Our Servicemen and Servicewomen project, is in full swing. Students and staff are putting together care packages for members of the armed forces. The boxes include everything from books and board games to toiletries and food—even girl scout cookies. Michael Douglas Bernard served in Iraq last year. He says getting mail was the only thing that kept him going.
Michael Douglas Bernard: Actually seeing board games and candy and stuff like that, you know, all the good stuff you like over there was in the packages. So it was fun.
RIT sent nearly 50 care packages overseas in 2007, and this year they expect to mail out more than 65.
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RITUniversityNews uploaded a new video
(1 week ago)
WXXI-TV (Channel 21) interviews Rochester Institute of Technology Dean Jorge Diaz-Herrera regarding New York's effort to promote digital literacy a...
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WXXI-TV (Channel 21) interviews Rochester Institute of Technology Dean Jorge Diaz-Herrera regarding New York's effort to promote digital literacy and adoption. The interview was conducted as part of the station's "Need to Know" public affairs broadcast.
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RITUniversityNews uploaded a new video
(2 weeks ago)
WROC-TV (Channel 8) profiles technology developed by Rochester-based Pictometry and references the company's relationship with Rochester Institute ...
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WROC-TV (Channel 8) profiles technology developed by Rochester-based Pictometry and references the company's relationship with Rochester Institute of Technology.
Software developed by Pictometry is being featured on the CBS show NCIS.
"NCIS wanted the real thing. They wanted what is really used in public safety everyday, and as a result they came to us," said Dante Pennacchia, a Pictometry Executive Vice President.
Henrietta-based Pictometry takes pictures, millions of them, from planes. They take enough to create 3-D images of anywhere, including Los Angeles, the setting for NCIS. The software is featured in almost every episode of the prime time program, in the background, and up close. TV stars like LL Cool J use it to help catch crooks.
"Very few companies can do this, it takes enormous amounts of science," said Pennacchia.
It's about more than just giving the people who work at Pictometry a thrill. The software has been so successful that they're bringing a hundred new jobs to Rochester, to support the growth of the software.
Rochester businesses groups say Pictometry's jobs are crucial, because they're keeping young, talented minds in town, long upstate's biggest challenge.
"Why is Pictometry being successful? They're successful because they recruit RIT students, because they have the kind of brainpower and workforce and talent that's right here," said Mark Peterson of the Greater Rochester Enterprise.
The new workers will work at delivering the picture-perfect product to ordinary companies.
"Now we can go into construction, and provide imagery and they can basically see everywhere, measure anything, plan anything they want to do," said Pennacchia.
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RITUniversityNews uploaded a new video
(2 weeks ago)
There's a Web site created to help people under 25 years old find a car for under $25,000 called College Driver. 13WHAM-TV interviews the Web site'...
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There's a Web site created to help people under 25 years old find a car for under $25,000 called College Driver. 13WHAM-TV interviews the Web site's founders, Rochester Institute of Technology students Corey Mack and Zeid Nasser.
Norma Holland: We first met you back in the spring when Holly was actually live out at RIT. There was a green car competition, and you both were involved in that. Did you launch the Web site then or were you already working on it at that point.
Corey: We launched the Web site a few months before that. We launched it in September of 2008, but it wasn't exactly what we wanted it to be, so we didn't start publicizing it and working with other blogs.
Norma: Okay, and we're getting a look at the Web site right now. It's called College Driver.com. Zeid, where did you get the idea for this? How did you conceive of this?
Zeid: Both of us have always loved the auto industry, love automobiles, and we've seen the issues that other car Web site have had. They don't focus on the cars that we would buy.
Norma: And you're saying 'cars we would buy' meaning people under 25.
Zeid: Yes, and cheaper cars. So, that was a big issue. They were always reviewing very expensive, luxury automobiles and always criticizing these lower priced ones, and that's what most of us can afford.
Norma: When I asked you earlier, I said the $25,000 mark- maybe it's just me- but I try to find a car that's under $20,000, but you're saying $25,000 is the max. At that point, anything over that is just way over your price range.
Corey: Exactly. So we try to stay realistic with it, again focusing on cars under $25,000- new and used. The used cars will take a little while to get online because we're the only two writing right now.
Norma: Okay, and that's the thing, this is a small operation. You're young entrepreneurs. You're engineering students at RIT?
Zeid: Engineering technology, yes.
Norma: So now that you're doing this, and it takes up quite a bit of your time I assume, is that right? What do you hope to do with this? Where do you hope to go with it?
Corey: Pretty much what we hope to do is make this site more useful to college students- as far as adding more features, as far as social networking- and start proliferating it throughout college campuses. Starting next quarter we'll be working on a feature that will help college students post their cars for sale for free. So pretty much just trying to make this site a one stop resource for everything- you don't know what car you're looking for and then your actually purchase.
Norma: Zeid, are people over 25 invited to use this site too?
Zeid: It's for everybody because I think a large portion of the American consumer are looking for cars that are cheaper, especially now that we're in a recession. I think our site is critical. I think our philosophy is critical. So it's for everybody.
Norma: You've hit the nail on the head, and we're going to learn more about this Web site- College Driver.com- when we come back on CW16 at 7:15, so make sure you tune in then because you're going to show us some of the features, right?
Corey and Zeid: Yes, absolutely.
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RITUniversityNews uploaded a new video
(3 weeks ago)
There's a Web site created to help people under 25 years old find a car for under $25,000 called College Driver. 13WHAM-TV interviews the Web site'...
more
There's a Web site created to help people under 25 years old find a car for under $25,000 called College Driver. 13WHAM-TV interviews the Web site's founders, Rochester Institute of Technology students Corey Mack and Zeid Nasser.
Anchor: If people weren't up an hour ago when we first talked to you, how did this whole thing get started? Was this a class assignment for you?
For us it started in the summer of 2008 with idea we had and shelved, decided to put it off for a little while, and we pretty much took this idea and developed it into a blog and we just expanded it, wrote a business plan around it, got 2nd place in RIT's 2009 Business Plan competition.
Anchor: And the rest is history now since you are sitting here with us today. So tell us about the site a little bit. We said for people under 25, anyone can use this, but why di you specifically gear it for people under 25 and the figure was under $25,000.
Well because the younger demographic really doesn't have a resource when it comes to car shopping. They're always going to other sites like Edmond's, Car & Driver and Motor Trends, and there was never really that young perspective on a car. So we wanted to give that spin and make that resource available to our demographic just because we feel like we've been left out.
Anchor: So you have some cars that are $24,000 and a little bit below that, how low do you go?
I think the lowest is Kia Rio, which I think is $9,000 or $10,000, and that's for new cars. We're going back slowly and back filling with used cars. It just takes some time because there's only two of us doing the writing here, so it take some time, but we're just trying to get a lot of the cheaper cars, so we're getting in all of the Nissans, we're just wrapping up all of the Sions reviews because that's a very popular brand among young people.
Okay, taking us through. I know you want to show us one feature of it, that is if I'm looking for a specific car. What do I do?
Well, here on the home page you would scroll down. This is the home page, if you visit College Driver.com, you'll see this. In the bottom left-hand corner, let's just say you want to pick this car you saw on the road you hit 'go.' You don't have to know the name. It was created for people who don't know that much about cars. And you see here we give you a list of logos, so you may not remember the name of the car but you're definitely going to remember what the logo was. In this case, let's just pick Nissan for example. There we go. And here what we also do is- what most sites don't do is they just give you a list of the car names but they don't give you a picture of the vehicle. So here we go from, oh, you remember what the logo looks like. Here you might remember the names or the names listed and we also have a picture of the cars, so we'll go with Nissan Centra. There we go. And then here we have a larger picture of the Nissan Centra- the first picture is going to be the current vehicle, the newest one. And these are the only two reviews we have written, so we go to 2010 and give you the big picture. Most car websites don't give you pictures this big. We give you 940 pixels wide, that's about 3 times larger than the average car website will give you.
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