Fire-Wired Blog

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 qual...

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 cramm...