Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Why is it so many cool technologies force you to break the law? Force might be a little much, but at the very least, cloud storage, social GPS, web-based DVR, web video platforms and many, many more new technologies put users in situations to make illegal choices, and so many of us do. Last year, one of the hottest applications on the market was the social navigation application Waze. Using a smartphone’s GPS technology, real-time user shared traffic updates and gamification, Waze practically demands users to become distracted drivers. Beyond giving turn-by-turn navigation, Waze users can share police sightings, traffic jams, accidents, road hazards, gas prices and detours all while behind the wheel. While these updates are extremely useful to commuters, users reporting them are most certainly not giving the road their undivided attention. Thankfully, breaking and bending the law via technology today doesn’t carry the punish...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com With more platforms than ever before, entertainment dollars are stretched thin these days. Everything from live entertainment and cable television to smartphones and physical media such as DVDs are fighting for a piece of your expendable income. In this entertainment tug of war, few industries are struggling to hold their ground more than consoling gaming. In reality, the gaming industry is doing gangbusters. In 2012, all arms of the gaming world raked in a cumulative $67 billion, and in 2017 it’s projected to take in $82 billion. Still, the console gaming is battling to pull its weight. Gamers might be quick to point to Nintendo’s joke of a console, the Wii U, as the offending party, but Microsoft’s XBox One and Sony’s Playstation 4 are also falling short of previous sales benchmarks. The main reason for declining console revenues is obvious, PC and mobile gaming revenues are cannibalizing console dollars. What’s worse for ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com With almost a season-like quality to it, the tech industry follows a cycle. New products are released in late summer, research and development throughout fall and winter, and spring and summer is all about hype. So what is the hype medium of choice? Giant conferences. Since the release of the original iPhone in 2007, tech conferences have been the fuel for the application developer fire. Smartphones existed before the iPhone. However, the game changer was third party app developers. Twitter, Evernote, Swype — these and many more smartphone must-haves started as small-scale apps, and the next thumb-powered wonder app might be generated because companies like Google and Apple piqued programmers at a conference. Conferences such as South by Southwest are legendary for launching Twitter and Foursquare, but as Apple’s recent developer conference shows, these massive tech venues might also be an app’s downfall. Apple used its conf...