Posted 11/02/09 at 01:10:50 PM by Paul Lilly

Pretty soon, it might be easier to list out companies not releasing an e-book reader than ones ones that are. Just as quickly as netbooks took off, digital e-book readers are fast becoming the next must-have portable device, as evidenced by the number of product announcements from a variety of players. The latest comes from Creative, who will look to make a splash with its Zii MediaBook.

According to Creative, the Zii MediaBook will be unlike any other e-reader on the market. The Zii will come with a touchscreen, text-to-speech, an SD memory card slot, and the ability to play video files and roam willy nilly across the Internet. That means you can probably expect WiFi, though whether integrated 3G connectivity comes as part of the deal remains to be seen.

Creative will also implement a strong social networking element to its device by offering users access to Facebook and Twitter while on the go.

The Zii MediaBook will face stiff competition from Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's nook (with a lowercase 'n') right from the outset, and it won't get any easier over time. Asus, MSI, ViewSonic, and several other companies are either working on e-readers of their own or have shown interest in the fast growing digital reader segment.

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Posted 08/11/09 at 09:00:50 AM by Paul Lilly

Creative has filed a patent that could change the way we operate touchscreen devices. Filed back in January under the 3DLabs brand, the patent describes a drag and drop user interface with "action tabs."

In a nutshell, users would be able to manipulate "action" areas of the screen and drag objects (like a music title or video, for example) onto an action tab. Or as Creative describes the technology in its filing:

"A system and methods for a novel user interface of a touch sensitive screen for pocket device. The user interface contains display items and action tabs. Display items are configured to be draggable if being dragged at substantially horizontal direction; display items are configured to be scrollable if being dragged at substantially vertical direction. Dragging and releasing a draggable item to an action tab causes a specified action or a sequence of actions being applied to the item."

Because Creative filed the patent under its 3DLabs brand, now known as ZiiLabs, we wouldn't be surprised to see this technology show up on the Zii EGG.

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Posted 07/30/09 at 05:07:20 PM by Andy Salisbury

Thanks to a recent announcement, we now know that Creative’s new Zii Egg Plaszma (read: open source iPod Touch) will be the first to boast a flexible StemCell system architecture, which will make use of 24 floating-point processors.

The Egg, which is shipping out to developers now in a $399 SDK is being marketed as an Android-friendly “handheld computer,” that has many features similar to Apple’s offering, but beefed up in a few areas. Most notably, it features a full-sized SD card slot, a rear facing HD video camera, a front facing VGA camera, Flash Lite support, GPS, WiFi, and it has enough power under the hood to output 1080p video.

The Egg will likely retail for $199, but there’s no official as to when we can expect it on store shelves.

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Posted 02/24/09 at 01:15:06 PM by Paul Lilly

Tuning and tweaking cars and PCs are two hobbies that are often likened to each other because of the many parallels, and thanks to JC Hyun Systems, the two even share some of the same DNA. That's because the South Korean car audio supplier has just developed the first automobile infotaiment system using Creative's X-Fi technology.

"I believe all motorists seek to enjoy music and videos of the highest quality when traveling in their cars," JC Hyun Systems said. "They expect the same high standards of entertainment experience they enjoy at home, something which most car audio or car infotainment systems in the market have been unable to match so far. By integrating the state-of-the-art Creative X-Fi audio technology to the RUNZ CI-7100, I am confident that we can propel car infotainment enjoyment to the next level and set the standard for next generation systems to come in the near future."

The svelte looking RUNZ CI-7100 Dash-Car Navigation Device comes with a 7-inch display with an 800 x 480 resolution, an Intel dual-core 360/300MHz processor, MMSP2 MPEG video hardware engine, SiRF III GPS chipset, and Creative's X-Fi audio processor with support for CMSS-3D and 24-bit Crystalizer. Other features include an SDHC card slot, Bluetooth, iPod 30-pin socket, USB host, and support for a variety of media formats, including MP3, WMA, OGG, WMV, MPEG4, DIVX, and XVID.

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Posted 02/09/09 at 11:30:00 AM by Michael Brown

Creative takes another stab at wireless audio streaming with the Creative Wireless Receiver, an AC-powered 4.0x2.75-inch block that you plug into powered speakers or your hi-fi system. The $70 device receives audio streams from a transmitter, such as Creative’s Xmod Wireless or X-Fi Notebook card (purchased separately), connected to your PC.

For our tests, we used the Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook ($90), plugging it into the ExpressCard slot in HP’s monster-sized Pavilion HDX9000 notebook PC. The combination sounded great—at close range, at least. We placed the notebook and the sound card in a bedroom and streamed music to several locations within a 2,700-square-foot single-family home.

Read on for the full review!

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Posted 12/18/08 at 01:25:09 PM by Michael Brown

Creative takes another stab at wireless audio streaming with the Creative Wireless Receiver, an AC-powered 4.0x2.75-inch block that you plug into powered speakers or your hi-fi system. The $70 device receives audio streams from a transmitter, such as Creative’s Xmod Wireless or X-Fi Notebook card (purchased separately), connected to your PC.

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Posted 11/07/08 at 03:45:04 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I finally took the plunge and built my own rig. Everything worked fine until I plugged my Boston Acoustic Digital BA735 speakers into my EVGA 680i motherboard’s onboard outputs: Nothing happened. I received no sound at all. I tried the same speakers with a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer card and got the same result: zilch. Am I missing something here?

The answer to Rich's question, after the jump!

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Posted 10/10/08 at 01:55:42 PM by Reed Porter

You’d never credit your headset after winning a Team Fortress 2 match, nor would you ever brag about your soundcard after just acing a round in Call of Duty 4, but any gaming veteran knows that having a sweet set of cans is a must for even the casual gamer’s setup. This is especially true today with the vast majority of professional gamers using headsets instead speaker systems.

Unfortunately, deciding which audio hardware is right for you can become aggravating very quickly with USB headsets, 5.1 headphones, onboard mixing, analog inputs, and incompatible interfaces confusing the market. With this roundup, we’re going to scrutinize six gaming headset options, and examine the largely unspoken differences between analog and USB audio technology.

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