Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Since the turn of century, when the Internet began consuming our attention spans, we’ve all been champions of “Revolution Free.” Napster started the uprising with free music, content aggregators such as Google News and Huffington Post stoked the flames with free news, torrent services gave us entertainment, and social networks gave us communication. While paywalls are starting to cordon off online content, the pulse of the revolution still beats with YouTube as its heart. The idea of free online is, for all intents and purposes, a lie. Whether it’s your local newspaper, CNN.com, Hulu, or even YouTube, all online content providers must pay delivery, storage and also the pesky matter of compensating producers. How are these bills satiated? Advertising. And while others have turned to premium, subscription-guarded content, YouTube has subsisted on advertising for nearly a decade. Whether you’re uploading to or streaming from Yo...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com One of my favorite George Carlin’s one liners was simply “Stay tuned, China’s gonna win.” The sentiment is easy enough. China is a sleeping giant whose might will one day make it the crowning super power. Extending this metaphor to the tech world, the obvious China substitute is Amazon with 2014 being the year it comes out from behind the silicon curtain. In the past nine months, Amazon has released a set top box, its first smartphone, a string of critically acclaimed original TV streaming content, and just last month purchased streaming gaming site Twitch, the largest acquisition in the company’s history. Amazon’s bread will always be buttered by online retail, but these recent power plays represent the company expanding into content delivery, telecommunications, the entertainment world and the fervent gaming industry. Nothing at Amazon is done in haste. It waited almost a decade before entering the smartphone market, and i...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com It seems in the tech world, if you are not an immediate hit, you are destined to be a failure. However, there are those who hang on and wait for the world to realize the utility of their service. For Skype, it has been an extremely rocky 11 years, but it is officially time to announce it as the premiere video chatting software. When Skype was first released in 2003, the value of a video conferencing service was immediately recognizable. Video conferencing existed, but it required a very fast Internet connection and expensive hardware from companies such as Cisco. Skype allowed anyone with a computer, a web cam and a microphone to talk face to face over the Internet, and in many situations, for free. While everyone recognized the utility, few people actually used the service, and of its small user base, few were paying customers. This lack of revenue lead to a long, near fatal road for the company. Seen as a hot commodity, Sk...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com As cool as Justin Timberlake is, what’s the first thing you think of when you hear his name? He’s a singer, right? Nevermind that for the  last decade J.T. has been trying desperately to be taken seriously as an actor. Shifting public perception is hard — for entertainers, politicians, companies, even websites. No one is learning that lesson harder than the once-popular location-based application Foursquare. In 2009, at the South By Southwest Interactive technology conference, or SXSWi, Foursquare dominated the hearts and minds of the tech world. Foursquare provided a social network for smartphone users to check in online to locations and share with their friends where parties were, what restaurants were exciting, and basically any location that was happening at that moment. The cherry on top of the GPS cake was Foursquare’s scoreboard for user check-ins, “Mayorships” for users who checked in the most at specific locatio...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com The parallels between tech companies and historical empires that have risen to soaring heights only to one day crumble to ruins is disturbingly similar. While Microsoft, Apple and IBM have somehow thrived for decades, they’ve marched by the graves of giants such as BlackBerry, Polaroid and Zenith. Similar to those fallen nations, the fall of those companies was a long, painful process that many saw coming. Such is the current story of Sony. Few companies have squandered their multifaceted fortune such as Sony. From the 1970s to the 1990s Sony was one of the top dogs in home entertainment systems, audio and video recording, disk storage and more. Today the Japanese multinational conglomerate has expanded to include cinematic cameras, video game systems, computers and least well-known here in the States, insurance. The problem with all of these separate endeavors is none of them own a respective market, and altogether, none of...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com The tablet is a quandary; it’s a stretched out smartphone that supposedly offers a computing environment similar to a laptop or desktop. Its size allows for easier reading, and its mobility offers the ability to work practically anywhere imaginable. Even with these advantages over smartphones and stationary computing systems, tablets are not tech necessities. In fact, as sales are starting to show, owning a tablet is most definitely a luxury. Even prior to its initial release in 2010, Apple’s iPad was a hot commodity. Everyone had fallen in love with the iPhone and thought a tablet version not only made sense but would revolutionize computing. Four years later, the iPad is still cool, but the revolution never came to pass. Altogether 195 million tablets were sold in 2013. But what a difference a year makes. Whereas the iPhone continues to see growth in sales, the iPad has actually seen a 10 percent sales dip over the last ni...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Everyone has that one gadget in the house that runs perfectly for years and then unexpectedly falls apart. It might be the disc tray on your Blu-ray player or the ceiling fan that pops a screw. For me it was a waffle iron that snapped its hinge in the middle of breakfast. The industrious among us might head to the hardware store and replace the broken part, but more often than not it seems those adventures are exercises in futility. Thankfully, there is an advancement in manufacturing that promises to end these nightmares: the 3D printer. As if taken straight from Star Trek, 3D printers take digital three-dimensional models of real-world objects and physically produce them using epoxy resins and malleable plastics. First actualized in the mid 1980s, 3D printers have only recently become fiscally and technologically feasible to be used as a means of parts production. As with many new technologies, 3D printers run the gamut of...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Of all the innovations and gifts Bill Gates gave the world of technology, the one that has crossed over more than any other is the idea that “Content is King.” Written as part of an open essay in 1996, Gates’ proclamed that in order to succeed in the burgeoning online consumer space, websites and services needed to provide original and alluring content. This “Moses on the Mount” decree is as true today as it was 20 years ago. I hate this phrase. “Content is King” has become the war cry of editors, news directors, and basically every content supervisor the world, and half of them have no clue what it means. To these people, it’s a way of saying, “Do your job,” or “What have you done for me lately?” But for a more accurate understanding, one needs to look no farther than the battle for online eyeballs. Every online media giant wants your attention. Netflix wants your subscription dollars; Google, YouTube, Hulu, Yahoo want your...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com In today’s world, technology is inescapable. When we’re not spending our working hours staring at computer screens, our eyes are fixed on TVs, tablets and the ubiquitous smartphone. This environment is the reason so many companies want a piece of the action. It seems every business wants to build an application, operating system and, most prevalent, proprietary phones. After Apple reset the industry with the iPhone, every tech company — including Google, Microsoft, Samsung and the better-late-than-never Amazon — unveiled its own smartphone. Building a company-branded phone allows organizations ground floor access to consumer behavior and purchase patterns, and as the world’s biggest online retailer, no one wants this data more than Amazon, who introduced its first smartphone, the Fire, last month. Of course, to enter the Android- and Apple-dominated marketplace, it needed a killer feature. Amazon’s must-have? “Firefly.” Sold...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Continuous growth is the demand of every shareholder and blight of every company. Everyone from CEOs down to mailroom clerks wants to rake in profits as much as investors, but failure to recoup bigger and bigger profits can quickly kill their job and reputation. How do companies bring in new riches? Through diversification or innovation. To stay relevant and profitable, practically every company must diverge from its initial path. Microsoft started as a software company, Apple was a computer manufacturer, Google a search engine and Facebook a social network. While all these companies still hold a major footing in these arenas, they’ve all pushed into other industries with varying levels of success. Apple makes the majority of its profits from phones and digital sales, Google is in advertising, software development and content distribution, and after entering the stock market in 2012, Facebook started spraying a firehose of cas...

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...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com On the list of ground-zero major benchmarks in computer history is Alan Turning, the man first conceived of algorithms who helped develop computer science with The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (famously created at Iowa State University) and the invention of readable programming code. Computer programmers celebrated one of these innovation’s 50-year birthday last week — the birth of “BASIC,” the programming language created by Dartmouth professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz. As opposed to generational gadgets eventually retired to landfills across the globe, programming languages never die. BASIC, along with COBOL, FORTRAN and others, were invented decades before the Internet and are still used today. What sets BASIC apart, though, is that it changed computer programming from mainframes and punch cards to readable code requiring no advanced degree in mathematics to understand. BASIC computers were literally giant calculators th...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com The last few months have been extremely tumultuous pertaining to the future of the Internet. Prior to a federal Appeals Court ruling in January, all Web content was legally required to be treated the same: Streaming video needed to be loaded on users’ computers at the same speed as someone reading a simple blog. However in January, a Washington, D.C.,-based Appeals Court abolished that rule, stating that the Federal Communications Commission misclassified Internet Service Providers and thereby lacked the legal justification to set such a rule. This immediately changed the landscape of the Internet. The FCC has come up with a new set of Net neutrality guidelines. Under its proposed “Open Internet” rules, Web content can not be blocked or throttled by ISPs, but providers are allowed to reach agreements with Web properties for faster connection times. The main difference between Net neutrality and open Internet is the new prior...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Innovation and disruption are the lifeblood of the tech industry. Innovation is the inventive process that has forced evolution onto countless industries. For instance, VHS replaced by DVDs, then Blu-rays, and now online streaming, with each step along the way disrupting the peaceful tech status quo preceding it. As exciting as disruption can be, there is a definite dark side to continual success in innovation: expectations of profitability. Consider Google’s latest stockholder earnings report: In the first fiscal quarter of 2014, the search engine giant earned $15.42 billion — astounding by anyone’s standards — still Google’s stock took a 5 percent dip, as it didn’t reach its projected earnings of $15.52 billion. Certainly coming up short $100 million is nothing to scoff at, but the underlying issue of profitability in the tech industry is notable. Before companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter and LinkedIn becam...

Google Glass is a miniaturized computer and camera fixed to eyewear, which connects to the Web wirelessly, as displayed at the annual HDI tech conference and expo this year. This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Somewhere in the last decade, technology surpassed nuclear weapons for the greatest threat to modern living. To name a few concerns, the government spies on all our communication, robots and automation devour millions of jobs, Smartphone radiation is likely causing cancer in its users, and hackers steal people’s identities. While there is a degree of truth to that, the greatest truth to fear is, in the next year or two, it will be impossible to escape being filmed. The smoking gun in this tidal wave of surveillance might be Google Glass. Released in 2013 for developers to test run, Google Glass is a miniaturized computer and camera fixed to eyewear, which connects to the Web wirelessly. It can currently take pictures, video, search the Net, answer var...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com One constant with every holiday season is the TV “Christmas special,” and this year NBC’s “Sound of Music Live” was easily the biggest. While most viewers enjoyed the broadcast with simply a cup of eggnog and a roaring fire, a good deal of the audience “hate watched” it. These nefarious TV viewers shared the experience with millions of others by partaking in the social virus known as live-tweeting. Twitter is hands-down my favorite social network. The ability to immediately exchange information with others outside your social network is extremely powerful. One byproduct of this immediacy is live-tweeting, where one or several Twitter users post a series of tweets detailing a live event. In its short history, live-tweeting has been used for a handful of truly historic and informative events (i.e. the 2012 election, the death of Osama Bin Laden, etc.), but more recently, many have hijacked it for what could be considered evil. ...

Next to being a tech geek my biggest passion is sustainability, mostly in food production and consumption. To that end my favorite event in Iowa is the " Farm Crawl ." Eight unique, sustainable family farms southeast of Des Moines that open their doors to the public to tour their operation and get to know their local farmers. When my wife, Marieta, and I moved back to Iowa the only way we could easily obtain organic food was by becoming CSA members and learning more about farmers in our immediate area. Thanks to social networking it's considerably easier then say 10 years ago but the Farm Crawl is really a blessing. Anyone can say they do things in a sustainable way but you can't really know for sure until you see their operation for yourself. Now the tech connection . The past two years I've taken a video camera on the Farm Crawl. 2009 it was my little Canon Elura (bogus handicam dealie) and put together a little preachy piece about sustainable farming . 2...