Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com If you’ve lived in Iowa for at least one winter, you’re probably pretty well trained on what the end of the calendar means; persistent frigid temperatures are coming with mountains of snow. After a day or two of complaining, most Iowans accept this seasonal norm and go about their wintery lives, but that is except for when the heating bill arrives. From November to March, eyes across the state bulge in their sockets when their winter heating bill arrives. Just as everyone forgets how to drive in the snow, we also forget how pricey it is to heat a freezing midwestern home. The good news is those annual heating bill freakouts may soon become extinct as smart houses learn how to minimize our energy usage and lower the price of keeping us warm in winter. In increasingly digital world, thermostats are some of the most analog technology we use. While homeowners have been able to program specific temperatures to corresponding periods of

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com In the mid 2000s the journalism was all abuzz about the prospect of citizen journalists. Independent producers who would research topics and illuminate major concerns in the world. Activists and politically fueled blogs had already been up-and-running for sometime, but the real interest sprouted from video producers that could deliver impactful, unexpected stories. An investigative utopia where you and your neighbor volunteered to wave the flag of the fourth estate and show the world first hand what was happening on the streets of America and potentially beyond its borders. Today, no one talks about citizen journalists and why is that? Because the overwhelming majority of user created content is unwatchable crap. Streaming video is powerful. Get hooked by a video shared on social media or embedded in a website than you seven times as likely to stay on that site and continue clicking around. That is huge for content providers. It i

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com One of the more awkward points in a relationship is when you realized you’ve outgrown someone. The worst is when you’ve got to break up with a significant other or drop a friend that no longer fits your lifestyle, but that awkwardness is not exclusive to people. While some items pretty much force you to drop them (such as out of style clothes), others become so ingrained in our lives you consider learning to live with their obsolence (like large DVDs collections). It becomes much more uncomfortable when it seems society is about to outgrow something, and right now it seems that distress is being caused by mobile carriers. To be fair, mobile carriers offer a great deal of value, mostly in wireless data connections; however, their primary service is quickly becoming obsolete. One could argue that phone numbers are not truly necessary, and by dropping your phone number one could lead a much more peaceful existence. Now before you

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com If you’re a fan of James Bond, you’ve probably noticed the last two films have relied heavily on the magic of computer hacking. Apparently “Q,” James Bond’s gadget guru, can do more than hide lasers in watch wristbands, he’s also a cyber security terrorist. In the film Skyfall Q undercuts all of James Bonds value saying his hacking skills are magnitudes of order more lethal than 007s spy talents. While not nearly as exciting as hanging from a helicopter or firing a rocketlauncher, Q is right; one nefarious hacker has the potential to cripple a business and potentially nation. So with our lives becoming more and more digitally integrated every day, why would the government want to make it easier for hackers to gain access? Practically everyone owns a smartphone, and the truth is these devices are actually computers, i.e. hackable. The NSA, CIA, FBI, and every other intelligence agency in the world works around the clock to hack

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com When the application development revolution hit a few products were almost immediately available: games, calculators, web browsers, messaging apps, business software and organization tools. The odd thing is both iOS and Android had all the obvious applications satiated by third party developers, not by Apple or Google. Maybe the most foolish software necessity lesson both companies learned was in the organization world, when the note taking application EverNote roared out to almost instantaneous success. For as long as there’s been recorded language, humanity has sought out mud and wall, paint and canvas, quill and parchment, pen and paper, or keyboard and screen to jot down thoughts. In the world of “There’s an app for that,” Evernote is easily the default note taking app. Across Android, iOS, and Windows over 100 million users are dedicated to taking notes, making lists, clipping content from the internet, saving emails, and bas

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Remember that period in the nineties when it seemed like cars and trucks had fallen in love with steroids? SUV sales shot through the roof and powerful cars regained their prominence all before gas prices climbed the to unprecedented heights. Oddly enough, mobile technology took an almost completely opposite path. Cell phones went from comically large bricks that could barely fit into briefcases to tiny flip phones that could easily be lost. Just like the gas prices that stymied SUV sales, a certain innovation pushed consumers to call for a reversal of the phone shrinking trend. What turned the tide? The iPhone of course. Giving the iPhone all the credit is not quite fair. It was truly the ability to view photos and streaming content via wireless devices. As wireless connections became faster, the thirst for streaming media grew at the same pace. The problem was the first iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen was not designed for HD videos, 50

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com One of the most confounding thoughts in the history of American business is the fact Coca Cola could have bought Pepsi in the 1930s. The biggest soda maker in the world at one point could have ended its chief rival. Now that’s not to say another company wouldn’t have surged up and become what Pepsi is today, but Coke versus Pepsi is the go-to reference for blood rival businesses. That would be like Ford buying Chevy during it's bankruptcy, HBO buying Showtime at any point, or Apple buying BlackBerry today. Problem is Apple might have missed its window to rid itself of BlackBerry, as the fallen smartphone giant is clawing it's way back to relevance. Before Apple changed the mobile device world with the iPhone, there was RIM’s, or Research in Motion, BlackBerry. At it's height in 2006, the BlackBerry and all smartphones were mostly business tools meant for sending emails and scheduling meetings with it's famous keybo

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com One of the fastest ways in business to build your brand is by franchising. Restaurants, hotels, retail stores, hardware stores, car rental companies, and so many others have built their fortunes on back of others hustling their wares. For a tech equivalent look no further than Microsoft, the behemoth of tech franchising. Instead of vertically integrating it's entire production line from software, hardware, manufacturing, shipping, all the way to sales, Microsoft has only worried about writing the software and left the rest to business partners. It made Microsoft unspeakably rich and helped build up countless manufacturing giants like Hewlett Packard, Dell, and Lenovo. Now after decades of franchising, Microsoft has decided to try something new with its Surface Book Pro line of laptops. Franchising its Windows operating system and Office Suite of software made so much sense for Microsoft. The more companies that licensed Micros

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com A common intro to economics question asks “Would you be okay with free phone service if in exchange your calls were interrupted with frequent commercial breaks?” At first the student immediately is drawn to answer yes, because the word free is so attractive, but after a moment the thought creeps if the service is truly free if you’re subject to advertisements. Our lives are inundated with ads; television ratings weight shows for proper ad rates, newspapers and magazines would cost a fortune if they didn’t run them, and millions of websites subsist on them. Now one of the biggest online advertising delivery platforms is offering users the inverse of that economics riddle; Would you be willing to pay for YouTube if it meant no longer seeing advertisements? Even though that question pushes the respondent to forgo “free,” heavy YouTube viewers do not care. YouTube is the number one streaming media website. There are billions of videos

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com In life, few things are as passively satisfying as “blocking” out the little annoyances. Telemarketers calling during dinner, well gripe for a second, then simply say “please put me on the do not call list.” Have a embarrassing family member on Facebook that you can’t unfriend? Well bypass that social media trainwreck by blocking them from your newsfeed. It seems just as society-wide rage reaches a fever pitch with an irritant, someone releases a tool to circumvent it. Today the most prominent digital irritant bombarding our lives is without question mobile advertisements, and almost like clockwork Apple has swooped in to save the day, allowing ad-blocking applications to be developed for its iOS mobile operating system. Take a minute to consider how many advertisements you encounter on just one site. There are banner ads, little videos that autoplay (sometimes with sound, i.e. “the internet plague”), assorted tiny ad icons and lo

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Connoisseurs of late 1990s television might remember a certain VH1 roundtable discussion show “The List,” which basically laid the blueprint for modern internet content. The concept of the show was simple enough: a host and four celebrity guests discuss and rank the quality of people, places, and things based on personal enjoyment and bias. Sound familiar? Well it should, because it seems one-third of the internet has succumbed to the eye-ball magnet of rankings. No matter if you’re looking for the best restaurants in your area, most reliable car manufacturer, quality of a film coming out in theaters, or most affectionately consumed gummy bear, the internet is ready and willing to deliver a composite score of the public’s opinion. The most popular of ranking sites is easily Yelp. Based on a five star scale, Yelp gives visitors the low-down on any business or service on which one might be looking for customers reviews. Hitting up a

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com There’s something exclusive about being part of a group. Feeling part of a movement or private society is why people join churches, gyms, go to specific schools, buy specific brands, and join cults. Of course there are additional benefits to each of those examples, but at their core they are exclusive with some more walled off than others. The savviest of the list are the groups withhold access benefits until you pay dues or fees. It feels dirty, but these clubs wouldn’t exist if people didn’t want what was on the other side of the pay wall. Over the last five years the online retail world has overwhelmingly embraced barrier fee, or as they prefer to call it “Retail Club.” I guess it feels warm and cuddly to feel you’re part of a club and not simply a cold business transaction, but these retail clubs are running rampant across the online marketplace. Amazon Prime is the biggest, NewEgg’s Premier is a popular alternative, Jet.com i

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Dear President Obama, With the Iowa Caucus nearing, and political drama starting to consume the news cycle, I'm sure you've heard the rumblings for a federal holiday on election day. Considering only half of eligible voters cast a ballot in 2012, think how big the voting pool would grow if people didn't have to work. Not being a political activist I have zero idea if this has any chance of happening, but it seems to make sense when you take into account people who work multiple jobs, extended hours, or overnight shifts. However this letter isn't about the election, it's about tech. I’d like to propose a different holiday. Mr. Obama, please consider a federal holiday for Apple’s annual new iPhone announcement. Now before you toss this letter in the recycling and cast it off as trivial consider that more people own iPhones in America than vote in the Presidential election. Approximately 130 million voters pulle

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Virtually every medium of media has its zealots. The most well known group is audiophiles; music or sound lovers pursuing the cleanest audio sound possible. These fanatics will espouse the virtues of five-figure sound systems that deliver frequencies the human ear can’t hear but are nevertheless important because of the subconcious way your brain reacts to said tones. I don’t mean to disparage audiophiles, or any other media zealot for that matter, but to simply identify the protagonist in a digital age crusade against the most alarming of foes; compression. As long as the ability to record sight and sound have been available, compression has existed. Whether we’re talking the phonograph, daguerreotype, or kinetoscope all forms of media started with compressed quality. Simply put, compression is any manner of compacting information as to reduce file size in effort to allow for easy delivery; i.e. degrading sound and image quality.

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com The National Football League –America’s most popular sport– loves to tout its $10 billion revenue value. Between dominant TV ratings and local teams stoking the flames of fandom the NFL has nearly a perpetual motion of cash creation. $10 billion is impressive, but interestingly enough it’s puny in comparison to the king of American entertainment, videogame playing. Companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, EA, Rovio, and Sega politely smile and let out a chuckle when they click by a football game on TV, because while millions of raving football lunatics are generating $10 billion for the NFL, billions of videogame playing zombies are shoveling $21 billion in U.S. revenue and nearly $100 billion worldwide. When you really start to think about how football obsessed our culture is, it’s preposterous to think that button mashing gamers in basements across the nation are fueling the economy more than football loving meatheads crammed i

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Children across the country are told this everyday when they say something hurtful. The problem is this expression is also used when people say something negative. Criticism and negativity aren’t inherently evil. They are the building blocks of better art, music, research, politics, and sometimes they even improve parenting efforts. For this reason alone Facebook needs a dislike button, and thankfully the site has been internally testing the feature for winter release. Since Facebook unveiled the Like button in 2009, a sizeable amount of users have been asking for a dislike button. In fact it's the number one requested Facebook feature for six years running. Opponents of "dislike" point to the bottomless pit of negativity the internet appears to be. Between snarky comments, trolling, flame wars, and outright bigotry, do we really need to slap a

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com To the uninspired, greed-fueled the modern web must be secretly infuriating. Parroting a phrase I heard time again in the photography showcase at the state fair, the internet inspires a lot of “I could do that.” From food blogs to silly YouTube video producers, it seems thousands of talentless hacks are raking in cash with little to no effort. The worst offender? Buzzfeed. Making matters worse, the new media giant was recently valued at a cool $1.5 billion. First things first, I don't believe any of what you just read. Creating audience garnering content on the web is not easy. It takes constant brainstorming, blitzkrieg creativity, excellent imagery and writing, and a unique voice. Anyone can run over to Wordpress and start a blog, but making a living off it takes dedication and serious work. Second, if you find yourself scoffing at a $1.5 billion Buzzfeed you don’t understand the world of today’s web. Web journalism has as

Covering the 2015 Iowa State Fair for Iowa Public Television made me eat my words. For the last half of my life I have been down on the fair, never understanding why so many people came to Des Moines to mill around a fried food-fueled, tractor-filled, expensive fairgrounds. Well after 10 trips to the fair this year I fully get it. There are hundreds of awesome event, contests, booths, and just general things to do at the fair. The Iowa State Fair is a HUGE deal to Iowa Public Television . IPTV's been covering the fair for 45 years and every year the entire production staff, dedicates 11 days in August to running around the fairgrounds with cameras. Of my 10 state fair odysseys, seven were for work and 3 were personal trips with family. Every time I've gone to the fair in years past whether with friends or family, I've left underwhelmed. Before the Fair got underway this year I was worried it was going to be more of the same except worse because I would subjected to

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com The internet can be the most downright ugly place in the world. Anonymous online posting is the number one plague of the 21st century. The list of horrible things people can do on the internet reads like a wrap sheet for aliens to exterminate our species; hacking, child pornography, revenge-porn, hate speech, gamergate, outright racism and sexism, and personally my least favorite of all, doxxing. Before we get too far down the rabbit hole of despicable web behavior, let’s clear something up; the internet is not all bad. It allows us to communicate in ways that were unimaginable just 25 years ago. The internet has changed the way people learn such as online college degrees and free, in-depth tutorials ranging topics from programming to quilting. The internet has enlightened people across the globe to causes and issues that are completely disconnected from their everyday lives. The list of good uses and things on the internet is so

Well the results are in and I'm to proud to announce that Tiny Explosions' 2015 submission to the Des Moines 48 Hour Film Project was the 13th best film of the year. How do I know 13th specifically? Simple, 12 films will screen at the August 20th Best of City screening and "Culling of Heirs" is not one of them. Right off the bat I'd like to congratulate the teams that will screen at Best of City this year. I haven't seen them all, but I completely agree with the half I have seen as worthy of being deemed the top shelf work of 2015. As for Culling ... it may not be our best effort, but I do believe we've learned the most from producing it. The lightning round list of lessons is easy: Acting is not a T.E. shortcoming. We know how to make something look great. Writing is THE most important stage. In room humor doesn't always translate to on screen laughs. Having fun while making a film is easy, but doesn't necessarily lead to your best w

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com There are big companies like Ford or 3M, and then there massive companies like General Electric or ExxonMobil. Now Ford generates more revenue than General Electric, but G.E. is more diverse company that makes it seem like it might own half the planet. In technology an easy equivalent is Apple and Google; Apple’s revenue is more than double that of Google, but Apple is a consumer technology developer, Google is a firm that explores every possible avenue of technological innovation. To that end, Google is about to make the leap from big to massive. Early this month Google decided it no longer wanted to be Google and unveiled plans to create a parent company named Alphabet. Google will still exist, but not as an all encompassing tech umbrella that absorbs and acquires other properties rebranding them Google That or Google That. See three years ago when Google acquired Motorola, the popular refrain was Motorola didn’t feel like a

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com One of the worst sins in rock & roll is singing your bands name in a song. Nothing rings more lame or inauthentic. Which is bizarre because in hip-hop, rappers are constantly saying their name. In fact, some of the biggest rappers of all-time made a name for themselves by building songs around their name; i.e. Eminem and the Beastie Boys. While there are exceptions, tech is much more in line with rock & roll than hip-hop. Sure you’ll see banner ads, billboards, and YouTube pre-roll advertisements for gadgets and websites, but television is generally the desperation move of tech relevancy. The most relevant example of the moment; Windows 10. The unwritten rule of no-television advertisement is not a tech commandment, but unless you’re up-and-coming or near untouchable, TV ads come off just sad. Microsoft was once one of those untouchable tech firms. In the 90s Windows was the operating system, there were no real alternatives

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Every generation there is something that puzzles the preceding generations. Working backwards; gay marriage, Twitter, blogs, computers, hip-hop, videogames, punk rock, et cetera. Now while this list only spans recent history, I’m willing to bet the trend extends all the way back to the discovery of fire and the creation of the wheel. The fact is change can be scary and almost always confusing. The most recent trend to ding both factors is internet fame, commonly referred to as “YouTubers.” In the early 2000s, blogs were all the rage. With high speed internet and limitless online space to chronicle our world, anyone could publish their thoughts, reports, and insights into whatever interested them. Some of these blogs lead to book deals, TV shows, movies, and mega website networks, however most lead to nothing more than inane drivel. By the mid 2000s the internet became over-saturated with blogs and are no longer the rage they once