5.1

Listening to music is a passion for many mobile device users and could possibly be a contributing factor to the smartphone revolution. Since the advent of the MP3, however, many people have neglected radio due to its limited programming. iHeartRadio solves these problems by providing instant access to vast amounts of streaming audio content. The best thing about this app is that it works perfectly, so you can just sit back and enjoy the music.

Download times may vary, but this program seems to take longer than others. It is quite extensive in its streaming access and buffering is very … Read more

Monoprice wants to disrupt the home theater industry. The company got its start selling cheap HDMI cables, and has recently expanded to full-fledged consumer electronics, with a bold mission of rolling out new products only when it can charge about half the price of traditional retailers.

The Monoprice 9774 ($249, plus shipping) 5.1 speaker set is the company's most audacious effort yet: a clone of the outstanding Energy Take Classic 5.1 ($394 street) speaker system for nearly $150 less. And "clone" is barely an exaggeration. The 9774 system performs and looks almost exactly like Energy'… Read more

There's a media player out there for just about everyone, from technophobic grandpas to people who edit various types of media for fun and profit. Zoom Player Free is definitely geared toward the more advanced users, given the depth of its features and its tendency to be a bit less-than-simple to use.

Once installed, Zoom Player Free greeted us with a long list of additional components to download. If you don't know what FFDShow, DirectVobSub, and FFMPEG Core Files are, you're likely going to be frustrated by the fact that you're being asked to make decisions … Read more

While promising a fast, high-quality video player, this app fails to deliver where others have succeeded. Mobo Video Player initially seemed user-friendly and well designed, but further investigation revealed instability and compatibility issues.

Mobo Player installs quickly and easily, but instantly forces users to load separate codec packs. There is not one codec pack for each device, so further downloading is necessary as you attempt to view various file formats. The main menu is full of advertisements and constant pop-ups trying to sell you other apps. The confusing array of advertisement is a hassle when you simply want to view … Read more

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today took two significant steps down its double-track path toward standardizing HTML, the core language of the Web.

First, it released a "candidate recommendation" of Hypertext Markup Language 5, which means HTML5 is settling down in the eyes of the standards group. Second, it released a first draft of HTML5.1, a smaller set of changes it's developing simultaneously.

"CR [candidate recommendation] is the stable branch into which only bug fixes go, [and] 5.1 is the new line for improvements," said Robin Berjon, one of the five newly appointed HTML5 editors. … Read more

With the Kingsoft Office app, you can view, edit, and send Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets, and other data on your Android phone. It may not have all of the options found in desktop versions, but this free app proved to be very useful.

The Kingsoft Office main interface includes a row of icons similar to what you'd find in your basic word processor or spreadsheet editor. It handles all the latest Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint file formats as well as text and PDF files. You can create files as well, but if you're working on a touch-sceen … Read more

CloudOn lets you add Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader, and several other apps to your iPad through the use of cloud computing. CloudOn also lets you use your cloud storage accounts to handle your files. It installs easily.

CloudOn provides access to a clouded workspace with applications such as Microsoft Office. You can use CloudOn to edit Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files on your iPad. You can also access your cloud storage accounts, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and others for file storage from the workspace. With Adobe Reader and File Viewer also installed on the workspace, you can see almost … Read more

Facebook hopes to make it easier to for users to chat and upload multiple photos on their mobile devices through a new iOS app released today.

In addition, the camera feature lets users add different filters to their photos, a la Instagram -- owned by Facebook. Twitter is also moving to add photo filters to its mobile app in a bid to stay competitive.

For messaging, you can swipe to the left anywhere in the app to see who's available for messaging, and mark friends you message the most in your Favorites. Facebook says the new Camera upload process … Read more

You might think developing technology standards is plodding, bureaucratic tedium compared to something like the frenzy of smartphone innovation.

But you'd be wrong, at least in the case of Paul Cotton, who leads Microsoft's involvement in the important and often fractious world of Web standards. Web standards are hot -- and hotly contested.

Cotton, an even-keeled Canadian, discovered a passion for standards more than 20 years ago when figuring out how to digitize airplane maintenance manuals. He's comfortable with the contradictory motives of standards groups: fierce competition one moment and gentlemanly cooperation the next.

It's a … Read more