Carnegie Mellon Spinoff YinzCam To Help Steelers Football Nation Stay Connected

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Oct 06, 2010, 01:45 ET

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Carnegie Mellon University's Priya Narasimhan is leading the technology game when it comes to creating new smart phone experiences for major sports teams.

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Starting last Sunday, Oct. 3, the Pittsburgh Steelers launched a mobile application for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry smart phone platforms developed by Narasimhan's spinoff company YinzCam, Inc. This groundbreaking mobile application will cater to Steelers fans both inside and outside the stadium.

"The technology provides instant action and real-time action replays from any of four unique camera angles at Heinz Field during a Steelers game, including the NFL's Red Zone Channel," said Narasimhan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon and YinzCam, Inc.'s founder.

Narasimhan, who developed the idea of YinzCam after teaching a novel sports technology class at Carnegie Mellon, predicted that the NFL's use of technology will continue to benefit the game and its fans. For more than two years, YinzCam, Inc. has focused on mobile live streaming and experiential technologies for live events.

"Because football is a game of inches, it is extremely important that fans get instant visualization of the entire game, and can stay in touch with the real-time game action, anytime, anywhere," said Narasimhan, an avid Steelers fan. "The new technology also gives Steelers fans access to player bios, a depth chart and real-time stats, player by player, drive by drive," she said.

Essentially, YinzCam enables fans at a Steelers home game to experience live video streams from novel camera angles using their Wi-Fi enabled smartphones. Fans also can obtain instant replays for all the game highlights on their smart phones.

YinzCam is being launched for other NFL teams, including the New England Patriots and the San Francisco 49ers, and also for NHL teams, including the Pittsburgh Penguins.

CMU faculty member Rajeev Gandhi is involved with YinzCam, along with CMU alumni Justin Beaver, Nathan Mickulicz, Jeremy Kanter, Max Salley, Brian Finamore, Hao Su, Paul Rubritz and Lou Biancaniello.

About Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon (www.cmu.edu) is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 11,000 students in the university's seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon's main campus in the United States is in Pittsburgh, Pa. It has campuses in California's Silicon Valley and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico. The university is in the midst of a $1 billion fundraising campaign, titled "Inspire Innovation: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University," which aims to build its endowment, support faculty, students and innovative research, and enhance the physical campus with equipment and facility improvements.