Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com It’s the most wonderful time of the year… well except for the whole “finding meaningful gifts thing.” It is a sad truth that some people in our lives who would seem to be the easiest people in the world to buy gifts for, occasionally cause panic attacks over what to buy them. All of the classic easy gifts of the 90s and 2000s are dead. CDs have been replaced with mp3s, DVDs and Blu-rays are being overtaken by streaming and digital media, and while some may argue, we’ve finally come to the point where physical books have been topped by e-books. The funny thing is the object our technological affection is the cause of our gifting dilemma, the smartphone. Take a quick moment to take stock of all the things your phone offers. It is a camera, a communication device, a pedometer, a computer, a gaming system, a stereo, a creative software suite, and a bottomless void of music, movies, and books. Gifting any of these common items h...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com For some businesses and job roles being in constant contact is paramount. It might be hard to stomach at first but sales personnel, account executives, c-suite level employees, department heads, and many other positions are never really off the clock. In order to keep these positions tuned in company issued devices are a necessity. A generation ago that meant laptops, then blackberrys, and recently it has turned to iPhones and iPads, but before you put in a large order of identical Apple products considerable the alternatives. First off we can discount any product lines that for all intents and purposes are dead or on life support. That means Blackberry and Microsoft phones are not options. If a platform is not in use by a massive consumer base that means developers aren't going to service it, which means anti-virus software and timely security updates are not available. Not exactly a situation an organization wants to will...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Stealing is wrong. Right after we teach children to share, we have to teach them sharing doesn’t mean taking what’s not yours. At that age theft means taking someone else's toys, bike, or seat in the family van, but as you get older it takes on all types of different meanings. Stealing someone’s bike or wallet is an obvious concrete form of theft, poaching someone’s girlfriend or taking credit for someone else’s work… that misappropriation of an entirely different order. In these smaller examples it is obvious a wrong has been committed, it’s not until you get industry scale larceny that culpability becomes blurry. Case in point, the entire smartphone market is a disgusting mess of pilfered ideas. This fall, one of the biggest cases of intellectual property theft went before the supreme court. After years of battling in lower level courts Apple has finally got it's day in the highest court in the land to excuse Samsung ...

One year ago the 48 Hour Film Project left a bad taste in my mouth . Our film came in below my expectations, we missed out on best of city, and I found myself considering forgoing the 2016 competition. Thank goodness we didn't because this year's film turned out to not only be our best yet, it ended up winning the runner-up best film prize for the entire Des Moines 48 Hour Film Project. Occasionally I refer to myself as a filmmaker and for the most part I've never really felt comfortable with the term. First off, I've never actually shot with film, but mostly I've never really felt anything I've produced could be considered a narrative or production close to the term. Most of our previous 48 Hour Film project shorts have decent stories and acting but none of the productions really came together to what I would consider a "film." This year I think we've come as close to hitting that nail as we ever have. The film was shot uniquely, has a na...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Every two minutes camera strapped humans take more photos than existed over the course of the last 150 years. 1.8 billion of our images are uploaded daily to the internet, which means more than 650 billion photos are uploaded every year. Considering when by Joseph Niepce invented the camera obscura in the early 1800s it took 8 hours to capture a single image, the photocentric world we’re currently living in is completely absurd. Not only is the number of pictures taken ridiculous, the number of instruments with the capacity to take picture is nearly as farcical too boot. Between smartphones, DSLRs, point-and-shoot digital cameras, webcams, camcorders, security cameras, and every other device equipped with a lens and sensor you can imagine we are living in a severely bloated image capturing age. Interestingly enough, it’s only going to get worse. 15 years ago, if you went on a family vacation and wanted to take a group pictu...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com It is amazing how open the world seems once you realize you have options. Once you discover life exists beyond high school you can do whatever you want and for that matter be who you truly want. Whether it be apartment, car, washer/dryer, or mattress as soon as you start making adult decisions you find out the true value of a dollar. But in technology it seems these lessons occur with every new innovation. For instance there are a multitude of smart phone, laptop, and desktop options, but even what initially seems so trivial can immediately become paradigm altering. The best example of the power of choice in tech may just be the web browser. When web surfing first started resembling what it is today, it was the mid 90s. At that time home PCs were overwhelmingly the home computing tool of choice and therein the main tool for web browsing was Internet Explorer. Of course many people were reaching the internet through services li...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com It is officially time to call it; the BlackBerry is dead. It doesn’t matter that it dominated the planet before the iPhone or that the President of the United States was it's number one fan years after the platform lost all of its cultural cachet. The classic BlackBerry design of a phone with a half screen, half physical keyboard, with a mouse like menu/selector button is toast. It doesn’t matter which BlackBerry OS 10 devices we talk about; the Q10, Z10, Z30, Passport, or Classic, all versions of BlackBerry technology that are not iPhone-style, single piece of glass screen are officially collectors items. What went wrong? I mean companies have been obtusely stubborn about their importance and style in the past, but few have gone down with the ship. Ford famously opened the door to competitors in the early 20th century when it refused to sell cars that weren’t painted black, and Apple was so stubborn about its locked-in comput...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Some technology doesn’t realize it’s full potential until they’ve had a chance to iterate through several iterations. A handful of Social Media rise and fell before Facebook dominated, Cellular telephones took nearly 20 years before they were a must have device, and virtual reality developers seem to believe their tech has surpassed acceptance breakthrough (although I’m skeptical). But for technology to stay relevant iteration and improvement must continue, unless it be replaced by something new. At this very moment, Bluetooth has announced a very timely update that not only rockets it the communication tool by to relevance but has the potential to make it more popular than WiFi. To the novice tech user, Bluetooth is simply an annoying means for jerks to hang a tiny headset on their ear and make phone calls. For those with a slightly more informed understanding, they might use Bluetooth to connect speakers to their phone to...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Summer in America is all about adventure. The old adage is we’re a country descended from immigrants and explorers, a people who aren’t satisfied to stay put and endure. The true American spirit is found on the frontier, taking in the untouched beauty of nature. Whether you’re a traveler who unplugs from the world to be one with the wild or a digital pioneer who needs constant connection to air conditioning, satellite television, and 4G coverage the great outdoors doesn’t care; all are welcome. 2016 is a rather significant year for digital and analog explorers alike as the National Park Service is turning one hundred years old this year. While conservationists and publications are using the centennial anniversary to sing the park system’s praise, the Service itself is not resting on its heritage. As the national parks enter a new century of service, they’ve unveiled a comprehensive digital application guides to each national par...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Throughout the history of comic books there have been two major camps, D.C. and Marvel. Comic book fans were traditional in one or the other. You were either with Spiderman or Superman (or I guess Batman if that’s all you care about). Now there were major fanboy delineations between the two; D.C. was the original and was populated with super powerful beings that seemed unstoppable, whereas Marvel was the upstart whose heroes had human flaws and were written for a slightly older crowd. Through the years third party comic book lines popped up and had their moment in the sun before either fading into obscurity or being acquired by the two on top. But in the 90s the darker, more violent Image Comics came out and thanks to titles “The Maxx” and “Spawn” nearly found a path to establishing a viable third option for fans industry. The story of Image Comics –nearly rising to the top but falling just short of glory– is a common refra...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Very few businesses want to known as the cheapest in town. For some consumers and products quality is not as important as price, but when a retailer or service provider is renowned as dirt cheap there are big questions. What corners did they cut to provide bargain basement deals? Is this product going to fall apart the moment I confirm my purchase? Will I be right back here in a week buying a replacement? The old adage “You get what you pay for” almost universally applies for cars, clothing, home repair, banking services, computers, and practically anything else you can imagine. For years, possibly even decades, the personal computer world was synonymous with reasonably priced technology. If you wanted a basic machine that could Word process, surf the web, maybe sort family photos then a PC was for you. The problem was a battle of the five manufacturers broke out, all vying for the bargain throne. Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Toshi...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Almost from the moment Steve Jobs passed away, technology pundits have been hounding Apple over its lack of innovation. It is almost as if Steve Jobs was the puppet master who sparked every idea and controlled his engineer’s every coding move. The truth is Steve Jobs had a brilliant way of looking at a piece of equipment understanding almost immediately how a human would interact with it if there were a computer inside. Apple’s problem now is in the nearly five years since Jobs’ death practically every device, appliance, and piece of apparel has had a computer installed. The world isn’t as ripe for techno-upgrades. It’s no longer about innovation, but iteration, and that is Alphabet’s bread and butter. When you get right down to it, Alphabet (formerly Google) has not really invented much. Web search, social networks, email and device-to-screen content sharing all existed years before Alphabet waded into their waters. YouTub...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com YouTube should not exist. With more than one billion users, trillions of hours of content, with more than 80% of users coming to the site from outside the United States, YouTube is a truly unimaginable thing. Billions of people owning iPhones makes sense; it is a tangible good that people pay for and use dozens of times every day. YouTube is a streaming site that requires no monthly fee to use and no login to access. With costs like server space for videos and bandwidth to deliver videos It is a miracle it survived long enough for Google to acquire it, and yet somehow it did. As startling as YouTube’s success is, Amazon is not impressed. In fact, Amazon just rolled out its own user-generated video platform it hopes will match and eventually best YouTube with its “Amazon Video Direct.” Amazon is not a company that backs down from a challenge. First off, it devoured the book buying and publishing industry. Shortly thereafter it ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com There’s something about paying full price that just makes you feel like a sucker. Our impulsive friends push passed sticker shock and demand the satisfaction being in on the ground floor of what’s cool. The more prudent among us are willing to wait for a price to drop. But the most impressive shoppers are the ones who buy early but clip their way to a cut fee through coupon clipping and lucrative rebates. Interestingly enough as the digital age has started to take route, bargain shopping has only grown with rewards programs and coupon applications becoming exception popular. Even with the decline of print, somehow the Sunday edition of every paper continues to be extremely popular. The reason is simple; the coupons. For decades the easiest way to find quick discounts was the Sunday paper. Well if you thought the internet couldn’t steal anything more from newspaper industry guess again, because coupons are just as readily onlin...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Cleaning up one’s publically held image is difficult to do. Being branded a cheater, or a dangerous place, or “not cool” can be a death sentence in the public eye. In 1970s New York City was known the world over as a cesspool of moral decrepitude and crime, The New England Patriots have been battling the label of cheaters for 10 years now, and Donny Osmond has easilly been the lamest man in music since the release of “Puppy Love” in the early 1970s. New York cleaned up it's act, The Patriots have pretty much ignored the cheater cries, and Donny Osmond is just too far gone to really turn it around. Of course there is another way to right a drifting reputation, and that’s make a splash before too many people know about your misdeeds. In technology “bots” find themselves on a serious course-correcting path to public acceptance. For years now bots, or programs with the sole purpose of replicating human interactions and decision...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Nearly every industry has offers a good that comes with a stigma. Setting aside pornography, if buy a $100,000 sports car and you’re compensating for something, go to the theater alone and you’re a sad, lonely guy, smoke cigarettes and you’re a selfish, uneducated fool. This list could go on for the length of this column. Still if you were to rank all stigma the lowest of the low, for maybe the last twenty years, is meeting someone through the internet. Since it's inception, finding a date through the internet has meant you’re desperate to find someone. But then something happened, Generation X and the Baby Boomers have slowly been replaced by Millennials as the main audience for pop culture and with it a new set of social norms, and not only is internet dating acceptable it is now one of the more trendy things you can do. How’d this happen? A little hook-up application called Tinder. To be fair to cutting edge philanderers an...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Like it or not, social has turned the business-to-consumer transaction into a relationship. The world seemed so simple before Twitter ushered in the era of real-time, public complaints. A customer had an issue they called a company directly and aired their grievance. Now with a twiddle of thumbs the whole world hears about your businesses failures and communications managers are forced to live in a nearly 24/7 crisis management mode. This is the new normal and it is not going anywhere. Still there are two options here: let your company be a victim of the real-time digital world or engage. Twitter is the contemporary water cooler, but instead of conversations being held in the break room gossip is being spilled in public. If your company is not actively managing your reputation in this public arena you are in serious trouble. Whether you’re commercial, industrial, business-to-business, private or public sector someone is discus...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com One of the most volatile debates in the world of technology is of ethics. What set of norms do technologists use as a guide to build morality when it comes to software, hardware, content, and oversight? The clearest debates over ethical technology rage in the world of science fiction? Should we create autonomous super robots that have the ability to make decisions about humanity? Should we force consumers to vehicles and devices that protect our environment for future generations? Are countries that are more scientifically and technologically required to protect and enhance developing societies? Of course these are all grand scheme debates about that civilization as a whole will face. There are plenty of immediate ethical conundrums developers and consumers wrestle with every day, and a perfect example is the use of ad blocking technology. 25 years ago, consumers had close to zero options when came to evading advertisements...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Tech has a unique way of sharing a glimpse of the future years before a device, software, or service ever comes to the market. Even fictional accounts of days to come present ideas that somehow miraculously develop into non-fiction innovations. Star Trek alone had the precognition to foresee tablets, on-call limitless entertainment, mobile translators, and needleless syringes a.k.a. Hypospray. As exciting as these flashes of tomorrow can be, the truly great ones are those that go by with little notice. The most recent example of the future passing us without a stir is the NFL’s plans to stream live games on Twitter. The National Football League is the biggest entertainment entity in the country. From August to February hundreds of millions of football fans tune in to broadcasts of the league’s gladiatorial action. It doesn’t matter if it’s the best or worst teams competing, or if the game is available for free on broadcast or ...

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com Reaching a customer is harder than ever these days. While media and product messaging is coming at consumers from every imaginable outlet, techniques have been developed to ignore and sidestep nearly all of it. To stand out you need to make your product launch and immediate use an event. If your advertising dollars end up being blocked, fast-forwarded through, or disregarded than your new goal should be making consumers anticipate your new services or merchandise as event release. In today’s 140 characters and forgotten climate, nothing is more attention grabbing and builds more lasting consumer enthusiasm than a live-streamed event. Getting a consumer to buy-in and feel a sense community with a company is no easy task. You can establish loyalty programs, provide exclusive messaging and add-ons, and build an account system where an employee manages the most important clients, but at the end of the day, you never real...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com When a new computing platform emerges it seems the our initial reaction is that of a four year-old on Christmas morning. At the age of four kids have reached the cognitive capability to anticipate the importance of Christmas morning, but not really the ability discern between a truly stellar gift and underwhelming that’s been nicely wrapped. While not all new tech platforms underwhelm, the misses all seem to hit with a fervid marketing scheme followed by a tepid consumer response. Right now no sector of the tech consumer space is seeing the tide turn quicker than that of wearables. Apple, Sony, FitBit, Google, Garmin, and hundreds more wearable manufacturers REALLY want you slap a tiny computer on your wrist or face. These little gadgets allow you to monitor your heartbeat, send and receive short messages, get directions, receive app notifications and other features that apparently aren’t convenient enough on our smartphone...