6

Think Apple's A6 chip packs a punch? It appears to have some stiff competition from Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa, slated for commercial production in the second quarter, the company announced today.

Featured in Samsung's Galaxy S4, Octa means it integrates a whopping eight CPU cores. Apple's A6 has two, by comparison.

While a raw core count comparison may be too simplistic, Samsung's chip, on paper, should make Apple worry -- especially since Samsung is simultaneously manufacturing the Exynos chip and Apple's A6.

The Exynos 5 Octa uses technology from chip designer ARM called big.LITTLE. … Read more

The default keyboard on Android gadgets seems to get better and better with each update. Jelly Bean's keyboard is sleek, fast and even comes with SwiftKey-like predictive texting. Jelly Bean Keyboard puts that keyboard on gadgets running Donut (Android 1.6) and later. It's a seamless port, but it doesn't suddenly make the keyboard better than third-party keyboard apps.

Setting up another keyboard on Android gadgets comes with all sorts of scary disclaimers. Your phone or tablet will tell you that this app can track and log everything you type. That isn't true of this keyboard, … Read more

Apple this week quietly made behind-the-scenes changes to its mapping service in Japan, fixing a handful of shortcomings.

Chief among them are changes to pronunciation during turn-by-turn navigation, a key feature introduced in Apple's own mapping service in iOS 6. The app now also alerts drivers to toll roads, and has better point-of-interest labels for things like subways, freeways, and hospitals.

Other tweaks include 3D buildings for some Japanese landmarks like Tokyo Station and Tokyo Tower, as well as changing the freeway color to green.

The changes rolled out without an additional software update from Apple. That's because … Read more

Those who want to be DJs or users looking to create a better sound mix for social gatherings need a program capable of mixing audio files. Radiologik DJ for Mac functions well, but the full version's high cost and its limited utility make it a questionable choice for all but the most serious audio listeners.

Radiologik DJ for Mac offers a free trial version, while the full program costs $128. The only trial version restriction is that a pop-up menu stops the program every 30 minutes and must be dismissed to continue. The program's small size of about … Read more

The App Store has created a number of interesting crossover games in the last few years. From branded iOS games to crossovers between Angry Birds and various films, existing brands are seeing the wisdom of investing in fun, short spurts of gaming on the iPad or iPhone to reach their audience. The Price is Right Slots is just such a game, marrying the compulsive game play of other gambling and coin-operated games with the classic price-guessing games and imagery of the long running TV show.

This game is similar to many others in the niche. After installation, you can choose … Read more

This app takes your home PC and turns it into personal cloud storage. While this idea may sound interesting, in reality xCloud doesn't offer a real cloud-based service, but rather enables you to connect your mobile device to your PC remotely. This app has many issues that need to be addressed: security is weak and the execution leaves much to be desired.

Downloading the application seems easy enough, but the whole setup takes time. In addition to a mobile client, you must also download a companion server to your PC and register both pieces of software. xCloud requires a … Read more

Text-to-speech (TTS) and voice synthesis technology have come a long way since the days of choppy monotones and "computer speech." Today's TTS tools can be customized in so many ways that they can be hard to distinguish from natural speech in some applications. "Balabolka" means "chatterer" in Russian, and that's where Ilya Morozov's freeware TTS tool takes its name. Balabolka is based on Microsoft's Speech API (SAPI) but with changes designed to improve the clarity and articulation of the artificial speech generated by speech platforms such as the nearly ubiquitous … Read more

Intel merrily building processors for Apple's iPhone and iPad is a nice thought. So, hold on to that thought for at least a couple of years.

Until then, Samsung's in the way. That chipmaking giant has a factory in Austin, Texas, for building iPhone and iPad processors -- now and well into the future.

And Samsung seems to be doing a pretty good job. Courtroom wrangling alone won't necessarily drive an immediate wedge between the two companies if Samsung delivers the goods, which it has done pretty consistently.

Then there's the other big obstacle to an Intel deal: … Read more

It had to come to this, didn't it? You can't trust yourself to stay away from Facebook long enough to get any work done before lunch. And don't get us started on YouTube. We mean that: don't get us started on YouTube. Hours vanish. So you're thinking about software that blocks Facebook and YouTube at specific times because something must stop the madness. That's where FB Limiter from AxiomCoders enters the scene. This free tool prevents users from accessing Facebook, YouTube, or both. Your password controls access. You can keep your kids from going … Read more