Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Is there a more terrifying company in the world than Apple? Sure, the company offers bulletproof devices, intuitive software that seems to know what you want before you do. And yes, it is continually two steps ahead of the technology market. The thing is, those same qualities are a nightmare for the business world. iTunes and the iPod flipped the music industry on its ear, the iPhone completely redefined what a phone is, and this coming fall, the iCar will make whatever is currently sitting in your garage look like a horse-drawn carriage. First things first. Yes, this fall, as in October 2015. Rumors have been creeping out to the general public the last two years including features, patent submissions and car design, but soon enough the cat will officially be out of the bag following Apple’s underground iCar tour. See, gadget and tech rumors may seem like cracks in the machine, but the truth is, Apple’s reputation is slyly ma...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Among the all-time colossal missteps in business, the biggest might be Coca Cola passing on the opportunity to buy Pepsi in the early 20th century. Sometimes the fate of one organization can be written in its failure to identify the true potential of the competition. An example would be Blockbuster failing to recognize the prospective future of Netflix in the early 2000s. I fear once again a company is failing to see the true power of Netflix in regards to its success or failure. That miscalculating company is HBO. When Netflix’s streaming service took off in 2008, the broadcast and entertainment giants didn’t think much of it. Sure, it seemed like an intriguing business model, but the majority of Americans consumed their content via cable subscriptions. Why would they want to pay extra to stream piece meal shows? Fast forward to 2015 and Netflix streaming is the dominant content delivery model in entertainment. Sure, cable sti...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com More than anything else, the tech industry desperately wants into your wallet. Sure Amazon, Walmart.com and other online retailers are major online stops for purchasing gifts and other goods, but that’s only the first piece of the pie. Amazon is the unquestioned e-commerce king, and whoever takes them down is likely to come completely out of left field. The next slice of online transaction dessert is mobile payment systems. None of them have truly taken off, but when one does, it might replace credit cards.tech app-icon Apple Pay, Google Wallet and PayPal are popular mobile payment services, but they’re not much more than masks for credit card services. Nothing in the mobile payment universe has gripped America like Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. Why use an app when your wallet is just as fast to reach as your phone and doesn’t require a data connection? What’s the incentive to putting a fourth party service ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Ready or not, the future has arrived. Maybe not the full blown starships, flying cars, and hoverboards future just yet, but with the advent of publicly available personal drones we’re definitely standing on the doorstep of tomorrow. For the first time in history, anyone can take to the skies. No flying lessons, no hundreds of hours of flight time, no need to understand the delicate balance of lift, drag and rotation, just a few hundred dollars and you’re clear for takeoff. Now all the necessary skill and required piloting intuition have been reduced to software onboard helicopters the size of a push lawn mower, and anyone who’s ever dreamt of being a pilot can. Such is the case with Scott Dearinger, a local drone enthusiast who first fell in love with aviation at five years-old. “I just love flying. I think I’ve got out to the Ankeny Airport and taken the first flying lesson four times now. It’s something that’s always fasci...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com In case you haven’t heard, the last couple of weeks have been pretty big concerning the future of the Internet. Net Neutrality, a term that means everything and nothing, depending on your web literacy, was for all intents and purposes cemented in the Federal Communications Commission’s book of regulations. The simple explanation on what this means to you is that the Internet will continue to be the fast-moving, cat meme-filled, pornography-laden super highway it has always been — i.e., no changes. The complicated explanation takes much concentration, so grab a cup of coffee and maybe a protractor because, seriously, this is important. At this point there’s no way around it — we all take the Internet for granted. It is the most important and intricate communication tool ever invented, and every time you turn on a web-enabled device you expect it to be there. Well, truthfully there is no “there” to it. The Internet isn’t a place,...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Life is full of add-ons. You make a purchase, and if it’s big enough, some retailers toss in extras. Everything from a side of fries to a new set of tires could be considered an add-on. This same principle exists with tech purchases, but those extras are anything but delicious or useful like fries and tires. No, tech add-ons are generally horrible and come with an equally awful name: bloatware. It seems bizarre for this to be case, but one of the celebrated bits of news in the Android smartphone world is that the new Samsung Galaxy S6 line will come with only two bloatware applications. I love Android devices and their customization, the widgets and the ease of designing your own custom applications and modifications. However, the major downside is they generally come loaded with unwanted software. If you pick up Samsung’s Galaxy s5 this weekend, there will be scads of applications you don’t care about and can’t remove. Sam...