Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by dmcityview.com Over the last few years, television ratings have seen an incredible drop industry-wide. Fifteen years ago, 76 million Americans tuned in for the “Seinfeld” series finale, whereas two weeks ago not even six million watched “The Office” series ender. While viewer numbers rise when online views are considered, online advertising revenue is nothing compared to broadcast, making TV producers desperate to push viewers back to their TVs. So what is the plan to entice you back to live TV? Exclusive “second screen” content. The term “second screen” can be defined as any screen other than a television where viewers enjoy content. It was coined around the dawn of the iPhone when online streaming video services started to proliferate. No longer inconvenienced by air times, second-screen viewers could watch at their leisure with fewer ads. So if the second screen is the disease, how is it also the cure? Say you’re a huge fan of “Fox’s New Gir...

This article was first published by dmcityview.com If tomorrow I win the lottery and can finally start making the ludicrous purchases we all dream of making, my first splurge will be the same as many as others’: a new car, specifically the Tesla Model S. For those expecting to read Ferrari, Aston Martin or Bentley, I’m sorry to disappoint, but to the tech geek imaginary millions can provide more than mere style and comfort. Started in 2003 in California’s Silicon Valley, Tesla builds exclusively electric-powered vehicles and defines itself as “the car company of the future.” While Tesla has struggled for the last 10 years to crack the luxury car market, the masterpiece Model S might be the car to finally break through. The Model S is a full-sized, four-door sedan equipped with a 416 horsepower engine that runs exclusively off a 1,300-pound lithium-ion battery and reportedly drives like a comfortable sports car. Beyond its eco-friendliness, the Model S is legitimately stylish, som...

This article was first published by dmcityview.com If there is one term in the tech world that is off-putting, exciting and confusing all wrapped in one, it’s cloud computing. While there is definitely a high degree of nerdery when talking about “the cloud,” chances are you are already using several cloud services. YouTube, Wikipedia, WordPress, Dropbox, TurboTax, Gmail — all of these websites, and the service they represent, are examples of cloud computing. So what is it? Cloud computing is the use of Web-based computing tools that replace the need for hardware and software traditionally stored on a computer. Any time you store a picture online, create an event on your web-synced calendar or web search for the definition of a word, you are computing in the cloud. Why is this such a big deal? Think back to how you used a computer in 2000 and compare it to today. A little more than a decade ago, you probably stored every picture, document and mp3 on your computer. It was ...

This article was first published by dmcityview.com Let’s say you’re 10 years old, you’ve just seen “Iron Man 3,” and your life is completely changed; you want to be Iron Man. Chances are you’ll never be bitten by a radioactive spider, and it’s too late to have been born on Krypton. But if you study hard enough, you could potentially become Iron Man, right? Most likely not. The chances are impossibly slim that you will one day build your own exoskeleton super-suit and fly around the planet fending off bad guys. But, theoretically, there is a chance. First, let’s examine the education necessary to build a fusion-powered, body-molded jet that responds to its pilot’s thoughts. From that very simplified description, you’d need a Ph.D.-level understanding of nuclear, software, materials and aerospace engineering, plus physics, chemistry and neuroscience. Tony Stark was a gadget-building prodigy growing up, so I guess he could master all those concepts. In the real world, though, if you...

This article was first published by dmcityview.com Over the last 30 years, the music industry has been hit with repeated body blows: music videos, cassette and CD dubbing, revenue-crippling peer-to-peer mp3 sharing. Long gone are the days of albums going platinum on the day of their release, replaced instead with viral Internet hits and the emerging technology known as streaming music services. A couple of weeks ago, Twitter unveiled #Music, a new music discovery web-service and standalone application. #Music allows users to listen to popular music, discover emerging bands that are being tweeted about, find suggested artists based on who a user follows and tweets about and #NowPlaying pulls music from tweets in a user’s timeline. While #Music is currently getting all the headlines, streaming music is definitely not new. Streaming services such as Pandora, Spotify, Rdio and others have been around for years. The advantage Twitter holds over its predecessors is its public communica...