Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by dmcityview.com If you’re technologically inclined, you can hook practically anything up to a universal remote. Your entertainment center, house lights, heating-and-cooling system and much more can be accessed at the push of a button. As cool and convenient as that is, it would be really cool if those devices worked on their own without user input, and that is entirely possible thanks to the promise of the “Internet of Things.” While the Internet we all know and love is a massive network of computers that allows users to share information, the Internet of Things is a network of Internet-connected devices that work together to make everything we use more efficient. The end result is smarter machines that react to our needs based on user-generated data and digital behaviors. It’s estimated that more than 2 billion devices are currently connected to the Internet and generate data: smartphones and laptops are the obvious examples, but also televisio...

This article was first published by dmcityview.com A recent Nielsen survey revealed that now more than 51 percent of adult Americans own smartphones. It’s no mystery why. Web searches, mobile applications, social networks and much more supply its users with answers to nearly any question within seconds of being asked. But what about providing answers to questions that you’d never think to ask? Location, location, location. No matter if you’re standing in Manhattan, Des Moines or Pohdunk, your phone is the divining rod to the undiscovered adventures and information surrounding you. Location and GPS-enabled smartphone applications host treasure troves of data, reviews and details on nearly every business, school, state park and everything in between. Yelp and TripAdvisor, maybe the most popular and easy to adopt for gadget novices, allow their users to search for specific businesses or categories for information. Foursquare, a GPS-enabled social network and discovery application, all...

This article was first published by dmcityview.com Every so often I catch myself getting a little too “inside baseball” when it comes to talking tech. Understanding how to use an application or website is not innate, and if one service reminds us of this over and over it’s Twitter. Even though Twitter has been around for seven years, and more than 200 million users are on the service, still nearly all users have the same reaction when preparing to write their first tweet: “How do I use this thing?” My employers, best friends, parents and wife have been mystified by the social network, and if I’m being honest, so was I at first. What is a tweet? Who sees it? How do people respond to it? First, the basics: Twitter is a micro-blogging service where users publish 140-character-length posts called “tweets” in a public or private manner for followers and the general public to read. Once users sign up, they create a username, start following people and organizations and communicate with...