Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com The last few months have been extremely tumultuous pertaining to the future of the Internet. Prior to a federal Appeals Court ruling in January, all Web content was legally required to be treated the same: Streaming video needed to be loaded on users’ computers at the same speed as someone reading a simple blog. However in January, a Washington, D.C.,-based Appeals Court abolished that rule, stating that the Federal Communications Commission misclassified Internet Service Providers and thereby lacked the legal justification to set such a rule. This immediately changed the landscape of the Internet. The FCC has come up with a new set of Net neutrality guidelines. Under its proposed “Open Internet” rules, Web content can not be blocked or throttled by ISPs, but providers are allowed to reach agreements with Web properties for faster connection times. The main difference between Net neutrality and open Internet is the new prior...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Innovation and disruption are the lifeblood of the tech industry. Innovation is the inventive process that has forced evolution onto countless industries. For instance, VHS replaced by DVDs, then Blu-rays, and now online streaming, with each step along the way disrupting the peaceful tech status quo preceding it. As exciting as disruption can be, there is a definite dark side to continual success in innovation: expectations of profitability. Consider Google’s latest stockholder earnings report: In the first fiscal quarter of 2014, the search engine giant earned $15.42 billion — astounding by anyone’s standards — still Google’s stock took a 5 percent dip, as it didn’t reach its projected earnings of $15.52 billion. Certainly coming up short $100 million is nothing to scoff at, but the underlying issue of profitability in the tech industry is notable. Before companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter and LinkedIn becam...

As you probably know I have produce a lot of video, well over 200 hours of professional and personal in the last five years. But until you subscribe to my BoBomb Wire YouTube Channel , you may not know that I also produce quite a bit of music. In fact, in that same five year span I've written and recorded over 300 songs. The majority of which I conjured up during my time working in Oskaloosa. While I still write a good deal of music today, I noticed a good amount of my back catalogue is gathering dust. I think it has something to do with no longer producing a travel show or writing kids music . So instead of hoarding my work, I've decided to put it on YouTube for the general public to use. That's right, I want you to steal my music & put it to good use. There are several more lucrative options to releasing production music, but those avenues generally require producers to subscribe to a stock music provider and I've found the music is much more produ...

Google Glass is a miniaturized computer and camera fixed to eyewear, which connects to the Web wirelessly, as displayed at the annual HDI tech conference and expo this year. This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Somewhere in the last decade, technology surpassed nuclear weapons for the greatest threat to modern living. To name a few concerns, the government spies on all our communication, robots and automation devour millions of jobs, Smartphone radiation is likely causing cancer in its users, and hackers steal people’s identities. While there is a degree of truth to that, the greatest truth to fear is, in the next year or two, it will be impossible to escape being filmed. The smoking gun in this tidal wave of surveillance might be Google Glass. Released in 2013 for developers to test run, Google Glass is a miniaturized computer and camera fixed to eyewear, which connects to the Web wirelessly. It can currently take pictures, video, search the Net, answer var...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Listing off tech industry power players is no easy task. Sure you start with hardware and software giants such as Apple, Google and maybe Samsung, but what about the Internet properties? That means Facebook, eBay, Twitter, Amazon and possibly Yahoo. But then there are high tech manufacturers and information service providers yet to be considered: Intel, HP, IBM and Oracle, for example. The list could go on. Now, if we were building this list in the ’90s, it would have been hard to argue that a truer giant of the industry existed other than Microsoft. Windows, the operating system offered by Bill Gates’ high tech software company Microsoft, is the most dominant creation in the history of software. No matter the iteration — 95, 98, XP, ME, NT, Vista, etc. — Windows controlled an impossible share of the consumer, professional, enterprise and government markets. However, the rise of mobile computing cracks the Microsoft monument, ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com There has never been a better period in all history than present day to be an idea guy. No matter if you have zero coding, engineering or sales skills, the information age is ripe for creative people to brainstorm game-changing ideas and find the right people and funding to make it happen. Sure, 40 years ago Steve Jobs co-created Apple Computers with no programming skills, but would Apple exist today without his Apple conspirator Steve Wozniak and seed funding from multimillionaire Mike Markkula? Think of all the Jobs-like geniuses who never came to pass because they weren’t surrounded by the right supporting cast? Today, two elements fuel the dreams of the would-be Steve Jobs among us: social networking and crowd funding. Before the advent of online social networking, it was practically impossible for unknowns to connect. Unless you, your friends or your colleagues could personally program computers, your dreams of tech inno...