Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com If you happen to be a website administrator, the last few months have probably driven you drink. You spend years building up recognition as a source of quality content or a website with a specific utility and then poof, the winds of web change blow and everything you’ve hard for evaporates. This common narrative is popping up in offices across the country following a major search update by Google. An update that has quaintly been dubbed “Mobilegeddon.” For over a decade the number one web search engine has been Google. Every day Google runs billions of web searches (yes, that’s billions, with a B), scouring the internet for every kind of information imaginable. The exact algorithmic wizardry Google employs to perform its web searches is the tech equivalent of Coca Cola’s secret formula, but unlike coke, Google has been modifying it's secret sauce over the years. The reason for these modifications is simple: while people can’t ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com When cell phone technology first made its public debut in the early 80s the technology was revolutionary. Sure there had been mobile two-way radios, but nothing like the ability to walk down the street with a cordless phone in your hand and make a cross planet call. But as with all technology consumers became jaded; calls sounded like garbage, the service was pricey, then mobile data debuted and our complaining rose to a whole new volume. Such is the nature of human existence, and even though we’re on the verge of a mobile data break through with 5G data connections, it too is destined to let us down. If you have ever seen a cell phone carrier commercial you know the phrase 4G. Like almost all technological jargon, 4G probably means nothing, but it actually represents years of communications research and development. 4G actually represents the fourth generation of mobile data-optimization. Streaming high definition Netflix, Hu...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com No need to adjust your television, it’s true; technology is improving at what seems to be an impossible rate, and truthfully… that pace will only keep accelerating. Since the worldwide web first became a public tool in the early 1990s, technology has proliferated and become refined in virtually every industry. Not only is every aspect of our lives becoming connected and computerized, but it seems practically everyone is getting a piece of the action. Not just the giant tech companies and not just the computer engineers with years of training. No, everyone and anyone can try their hand at the tech world now, and the fuel to this fire is what’s known as the “Maker” culture. Chances are you’ve heard the term DIY, or Do-It-Yourself, before. The idea of changing your car’s oil on your own, residing your house without help from a contractor, or hooking up your stereo’s surround sound without assistance from the nerd herd. Makers are...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com 2015 is a photographers dream. Quality equipment is cheap and abundant, picture taking -once restricted to the number of exposures on a reel of film- is practically limitless thanks to electronic media, and thanks to online social networks photos can be shared around the world within seconds of being uploaded. Of course if you’ve taken 10,000 photos at 50 megapixels a pop you have a new problem; a mountain of digital media. Thankfully just as film negatives have become a trinket of days gone by, a digital storage option has replaced it; the cloud. Think of all the electronics you own. How many of those gadgets have cameras embedded in them? Now how many of those media devices are web enabled? It’s no coincidence if both numbers are the same. See the internet has become the primary place to store, display, and showcase photography. In fact, Facebook’s true innovation isn’t the online social network, but providing the first boun...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Some companies are synonymous for the industry they are a part of. If you’re in the south Coke represents all sodas. Before the tech boom of the 2000s, Microsoft was pretty much the only name in the software or computing world. Since Microsoft’s falling from the top of mountain the lasting tech synonym has shifted to Google, as in “let me Google that for you.” Finally for over a decade in the gaming Nintendo was the reigning industry synonym. Today Nintendo is a pathetic shell of its 1980s and 90s shelf, but if recent news comes to fruition the Japanese gaming company may once again be king of the game world. Since achieving perfection with GoldenEye 007 (a landmark with 1997 first person shooter and multiplayer game) Nintendo has hit every gaming pothole imaginable. Upon its 2001 release, the GameCube sunk like a rock to the bottom of the gaming ocean against the more powerful XBox and Playstation 2. Luckily Nintendo’s fortun...