Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Americans have a fantastic talent for yielding to malfeasance. Political shenanigans, continually rising college tuition, highway traffic jams, movie spoilers — these things and many more eventually become a fact of life to which we all acquiesce. As far as tech grievances go, as products evolve many annoyances are cleared up. (Remember when you could only send text messages to people on the same carrier as you? That was the worst.) Still, as we lose tech issues to complain about, the worst one of them still remains: connection speeds. Something is horrendously wrong when the United States ranks 10th in the world in Internet speed. We invented, populated and basically run the Internet, yet somehow our Internet is slower than Latvia and the Czech Republic. Basic high-speed Internet packages in South Korea, which has the fastest connection speeds on the planet, outpace Des Moines’ basic connections 8 to 1. For a state that proudl...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com It appears within 10 years the Internet will be one giant television. Every major Web entity is creating video content. Connections are slowly climbing to speeds that will easily stream virtually anything. It seems the only obstacle without a clear path to get around is organization. How will users be able to aggregate all the disparate content they’ve subscribed to across the Internet? I see an answer in Plex, a Web content DVR. Last week, HBO finally announced it was getting into the Web streaming arena. The premium cable channel will continue broadcasting on television, however, non-cable subscribers can now access HBO content online through a Web-only subscription. With this announcement, the list of major media providers that offer gated streaming video is getting quite crowded. In addition to HBO, there is Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, Yahoo, Sony, AOL and more than 100 others. Searching content across all of these sit...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Everyone likes to feel like he or she is creative. Whether you’re a photographer, an accountant or a plumber, artistry can found in practically any vocation. Still, the common definition of creativity looks to visual and auditory mediums such as paintings and jazz for the truly talented, and if one tech company has that segment of imagination cornered, it’s Adobe. Twenty-six years ago, Photoshop was invented, and the world was forever changed. Prior to its arrival, coloring, editing and perfecting images was mainly a darkroom task. Photoshop changed that forever. Today, Photoshop dominates the digital imaging world with millions of photographers, designers and creators using the software. It is so popular, “photoshopped” has become a noun for an obviously-doctored image. As popular as Photoshop is, after Adobe purchased it in 1988, the applications it inspired and spawned changed the creative world. Beyond Photoshop, Adobe com...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com When marketing works, it really works. “Got Milk?” “Just Do It.” “Save Money. Live Better.” These slogans not only drilled their way into the brains of millions of Americans, they sold billions of products. In 2008, Apple — a company renowned for its design and branding — joined the pantheon of marketing taglines with its iPhone slogan, “There’s an App for that.” What made Apple’s catchphrase so powerful was the truth therein; iPhone users could find an application for everything from word processing to video gaming. Today the constellation of app possibilities continues to grow with Good2Go, a private messaging service designed to verbalize sexual consent. Last year, when Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was publicly investigated for alleged sexual assault, the nebulous world of collegiate definition of sexual consent became a hot news item. Does sexual consent need to be explicit with those about to get frisky agreein...