logic

Traffic Jam Free 1.6.8 Review

With a number of puzzle games available for Android, finding one that sets itself apart may be a difficult task. Traffic Jam Free, while having an original concept and playing style, is too simple to entertain users for long periods of time.

Download and installation of Traffic Jam Free completed quickly via the Google Play store. At startup, the program immediately opens up to the game screen and lacks any instructions or tutorials. It did not appear that technical support was available either. This meant trial and error was needed to figure out the gameplay and controls. The game is … Read more

Logic For Preschoolers 1.0 Review

On the surface, Logic For Preschoolers is a deceptively simple app. The name makes it sound like one of those DVDs designed to enhance brain power in young children and the interface looks as bare bones as it can get. Yet under the surface, Logic for Preschoolers is a well-rounded, feature-rich app that preschoolers will find intriguing and parents will enjoy for its no-frills approach to teaching basic concepts and logic ideas to young children.

The app consists of six categories, each with 15 to 20 questions. The questions involve recognizing the relationship between two pictures and then filling in … Read more

Simple puzzler gets challenging quickly as gameboards get bigger

Flow Free: Bridges is an easy-to-learn puzzler with satisfying touch-screen controls, but be ready for a challenge once you hit later levels.

Many people will remember Web-based pipe games where you connect pipes to complete a circuit so water can flow from a starting point to a goal. Flow Free: Bridges is a similar concept, but instead you're trying to connect multiple color-coded start and end points together without crossing the lines. Fortunately, there is an exception to the rule about crossing the lines, with bridge tiles you can make one pipe pass over another to get to the … Read more

Record, mix, publish your next big hit track with Logic Pro 9

Logic Pro 9 is the latest version of Apple's music recording, editing, and mixing suite. This is not a cheap package, but you get a lot of power built in. Logic Pro 9 installs easily and the interfaces are all Apple-quality, meaning easy to use and understand.

Logic Pro 9 starts with the writing and recording component. You can see traditional musical notation on the screen if you want to compose, or you can play instruments through a MIDI interface and see the resulting notes in real time (really cool!). You can record to separate tracks, or multiple tracks … Read more

Hey, Obama, Romney, there's a lot of U.S. stuff in the iPhone 5

Apple's iPhone and iPad have emerged as poster children for the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs.

Can't Apple make the MacBook, iPad, and iPhone in the U.S.? -- was the plea posed as a question by the CNN moderator Tuesday night -- with both Obama and Romney providing answers relatively lacking in nuance.

So, I decided to ask a different question to IHS iSuppli: How of much the stuff inside the iPhone 5 is provided by U.S. companies -- regardless of where it's made. That's a fair question since focusing on where something's … Read more

Apple is No. 8 on Fortune's list of fastest-growing companies

Despite competition from Android, Apple is doing just fine, at least according to Fortune's list of the fastest-growing companies around the world.

Apple came in third on the list of the top 100 companies with a three-year average growth in profit of 70 percent and a gain in sales of 52 percent. Over the past year, Apple's stock price has soared 80 percent, helping it to become the biggest company in the U.S. based on market value.

The one disappointment cited by Fortune was Apple's fiscal 2012 third quarter when earnings and iPhone sales were lower than Wall Street expected. … Read more

Apple releases Logic Pro and Express updates

If you are an audio enthusiast or musician and make use of Apple's Logic Pro or Logic Express software packages, then Apple has released a couple of updates that address compatibility, performance, and stability in these programs.

While the updates have not yet been listed on Apple's support download page, they should be available via Software Update for those who have either Logic Pro or Logic Express installed, so you can manually invoke Software Update from the Apple menu to get these updates.

According to the release notes for each of these updates (Logic Pro and Logic Express), … Read more

MIDI audio apps hanging with CoreMIDI bouncing in the Dock

If you use pro audio applications with OS X and are finding they hang when launched, this could be because of faults with third-party drivers for your MIDI instruments.

Music software company Avid has a music-editing package called Pro Tools that you may have installed on your system if you work extensively with audio. This package supports MIDI devices, but early versions of the program may result in a driver conflict with Apple's CoreMIDI framework for handling these devices. As a result, if you have Pro Tools installed and try to launch other audio-editing applications then you may see … Read more

Broadcom to acquire NetLogic for $3.7 billion

Another blockbuster acquisition has hit the tech industry.

Semiconductor company Broadcom announced today that it has agreed to acquire NetLogic Microsystems for $50 per share, or about $3.7 billion. The $50 per share represents a nearly 57 percent premium on NetLogic's closing stock price on Friday of $31.91.

NetLogic seems to be a reasonable acquisition for Broadcom, which focuses on chips for networking gear. Both companies compete in the semiconductor market, but NetLogic offers components in areas that Broadcom needs to bolster its own lineup, including knowledge-based processors and multicore embedded processors, the companies said in a … Read more

Verizon Droid Bionic arrives finally

HTC files a lawsuit against Apple with nine new patents from Google, Adobe has released its pricey photo-sharing app and service called Carousel, and Verizon finally launches the Bionic nine months after the "super-phone" made its first appearance.

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded: