Author: James Mowery

Forget about HDTVs, PSPs, Macbooks, iPods, radios, cameras, camcorders, books, maps, and GPSs. We don’t need ‘em! We have everything our technology-loving hearts could ever desire in the palm of our hand — many call them smart phones, but they are far more than that. They are the makings of a technological revolution. However, it wasn’t always this way. For far too long we were constrained with devices that did one single thing: telephones ensured you would always stay connected with annoying family members, MP3 players enabled you to jam to Justin Timberlake, GPSs managed to get you…

Digg it, Like it, star it, favorite it, or bookmark it — that’s what many of us do when we see something we enjoy on the Web. But will that piece of content ever be viewed again? Probably not. Sadly, we rarely take advantage of our bookmark collection. It will eventually become a digital junk pile. So is it time for the bookmark to die? Perhaps it is time for the bookmark to evolve. As someone who views hundreds of articles, images, and videos on a daily basis — almost to the point of driving me towards insanity — the task of saving this content to take advantage of it at a later time has always overwhelmed…

Feelings are hurt and lives are ruined on a daily basis because criminals are taking advantage. They’re taking the very tools and technologies we have thought of as good, and using them to do great evil. Unfortunately, as the world’s reliance on technology grows, the dark side of technology grows along with it. In 2009 alone, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 336,655 complaint submissions, which was ultimately a 22.3% increase from the previous year and a 571% increase over the previous nine years when the IC3 was first created. Just as bad, the monetary damages are increasing…

Google. It is unquestionably one of the most well-known companies in the world. It has empowered everyday people with information and given online businesses reasons to exist. Most importantly, it has proven that free can be profitable. But all this has to make you wonder — what would have become of the world if Google didn’t exist? There are so many potential questions that could be asked. Could Microsoft have actually ended up in a worse position than it is today? Would Apple have gone bankrupt? Perhaps Yahoo! could have ended up as the most powerful company in the world? Would the Internet be…

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) used to be the most important day within the game industry for publishers, developers, and consumers, but numerous issues over the years had taken away the spectacle’s appeal. This year’s E3, however, certainly had the emotion behind it to propel it back to its former greatness. Unfortunately, “great” isn’t quite the word I would use to describe it. There are three types of gamers in this world: the hardcore gamer is generally the teen or twenty or thirty something that is awake at 4 AM blasting away his or her buddies in Modern Warfare 2; the casual gamer…

The entertainment industry has embarked in an all-out war against piracy around the globe, with the hopes of scaring would-be pirates from illegally obtaining digital media. But if the likes of the MPAA and RIAA plans on sinking the ship that millions sail throughout the Internet, they should think again. The primary target for the entertainment industry, as it would seem, has been The Pirate Bay. It is far more than a website that enables users to acquire digital content of both legal and illegal variety. It is a symbol. It is a powerful message that the entertainment industry hates but many people,…

As the Internet becomes more prominent in people’s lives, they are expecting more things for free, and companies are seemingly happy to oblige. But there is always a price to pay. So does anyone care to take a guess as to who will be paying that massive bill? You will! But let’s take a step back for a moment. The idea of giving things away for free online really became Google’s sticking point. It’s a topic covered quite well in Jeff Jarvis’ What Would Google Do. And while Google surely wasn’t the first company to give away their products and services for free, they made this model work better than any other…

Imagine a city with stores that look like jail cells, dark alleys with no end in sight, graffiti written all over the walls, and thugs on every street corner. This city is the open web, containing Google, Yahoo, Craigslist, eBay, Paypal, and others. Now imagine a city with multi-million dollar mansions, paved streets with clean sidewalks, beautiful parks with freshly-cut grass, and happy people enjoying every second of life. This is Apple’s ecosystem, led by the iPhone, iPad, and iTunes. That’s a pretty drastic comparison, wouldn’t you say? Well, this is how Virginia Heffernan of The New York…

Dear Game Publishers, what are you thinking? For years, loyal supporters of your games have dealt with ridiculous price increases, overpriced downloadable content, and silly DRM schemes. Yet now, in these most critical times for the game industry, your idea of repaying them is to make us pay even more? Really? Furthermore — stooping to an all-time low — EA has stepped up for your industry and decided that users should be pushed (if not forced) to purchase new games only, punishing gamers who legitimately purchase used games. The idea behind this is essentially to make them pay extra money…

When was the last time you had a lengthy chat with someone on the phone? A few weeks? Months? Years, even? Well, if it’s been a while, you can rest assured that you are not the only one. But it should make us wonder if the the future of one-on-one communication will rest solely on our thumbs. You’ve probably seen teens and adults alike texting away on their phones. It’s seemingly an infectious, zombie-like trend. They text while in school (unproductive, I know). They text while in the movie theaters (annoying, I know). They text while driving (dangerous, I know). They are taking over! Silence!…