11/02, 12:15pm
Ziio 7, 10 debut as 1st Creative Android tablets
Creative entered into the tablet arena today with a pair of Android 2.1 tablets. The Ziio 7 and 10 both make audio their strong points and combine Creative's usual X-Fi audio processing with the use of apt-X's new audio codec. The format allows high-quality audio over Bluetooth with reduced lag, making them better fits for wireless headphones and speakers than the usual compressed sound.
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04/28, 6:50pm
Creative outs ZiiSound D5 Bluetooth speaker
Creative has just released its ZiiSound D5 Bluetooth speaker system. The company claimed to have avoided the usual compression problems and is using apt-X for streaming high-quality audio over the 3Mbps link. It should support any A2DP-capable Bluetooth device, including smartphones such as the iPhone as well as other handhelds like the iPad and iPod.
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12/15, 11:05am
Nintendo Zii TM may snub Creative hardware
Nintendo raised speculation late Monday by quietly filing for a trademark on the name "Zii" in Japan. The name rights would cover both video games as well as other electronic devices and appears intended to block Creative from using the Zii name on devices in the country, such as the Zii Egg developer media player or the ZiiSound speaker line.
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12/02, 5:15pm
Creative outs ZiiSound speakers docks
At the Zii Summit in Singapore on Tuesday, Creative showed off a new range of iPod speaker docks branded as ZiiSound. Despite the name, the speakers will not have Creative's Zii stemcell processor integrated into them. The ZiiSound D5 iPod dock sports a wireless iPod connector and sends the audio to the actual speakers using Bluetooth.
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12/01, 8:40am
Zii Trinity serves as reference Android phone
Creative entered the phone arena for the first time today by launching its Zii Trinity platform. Like the Zii Egg, the Trinity is a reference design rather than a full product and gives those building hardware or software a full-touchscreen Android (or Creative's own Plaszma) smartphone to work from. It supports quad-band GSM/EDGE as well as tri-band, 7.2Mbps 3G over HSPA but still carries the ZMS-05 chip that provides 1080p video decoding and hardware accelerated OpenGL ES 3D.
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11/16, 9:55pm
Device marks Creative's foray into cellular market
Creative subsidiary ZiiLABS has announced that it will unveil the Zii smartphone platform at the upcoming Zii Summit event. The ZMS-05 system-on-a-chip (SOC) components are claimed to be the first to offer 1080p video playback capabilities on a handheld device. The Media Rich Processor also boasts OpenGL ES 3D graphics with acceleration for web browsing, video playback and imaging.
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11/09, 10:00am
ZiiLabs ZMS-08 decods HQ 1080p
ZiiLabs today claimed a milestone in mobile processors with the ZMS-08, its second new chip in a year. The new design blends the existing many-core design of the original ZMS-05 with a 1GHz ARM Cortex processor and should process video at a level previously unseen in mobile chips. While other chips can decode 1080p video, the new design reportedly processes the HD output in High Profile H.264, or enough quality to match Blu-ray.
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11/03, 1:35pm
Developer Zii EGG gets Android, due for ZMS-05
Creative's sub-brand ZiiLABS on Tuesday released the previously unveiled optimized implementation of the Android operating system for its Plaszma development platforms, including the Zii Egg media player and ZMS-05 system module. The Android Plaszma release is based on Android 1.6 and lets supporting handheld devices play back 1080p videos for the first time.
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11/02, 10:05am
Creative MediaBook reader to have web access
At its recent annual meeting, Creative unexpectedly announced plans to release an e-book reader it calls the MediaBook. While the name may change before the device makes it to production, features such as a touchscreen, text-to-speech functionality and an SD memory card reader are not expected to change. It should also feature Creative's Zii processor and have the ability to browse the Internet, both of which differentiate it from other e-book readers on the market.
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08/28, 1:30pm
Creative Zii Egg ships
Creative has begun its first shipments of the Zii Egg, reports say. The device is Creative's first touchscreen media player, equipped with a 3.5-inch, 480x320 multi-touch display. It supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS, and it is also notable for including two VGA cameras, plus HDMI output at resolutions up to 1080p. The current model is actually meant for developers, and uses an open-source operating system.
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07/28, 10:10am
Creative Zii Egg
Arriving late to touchscreen players, Creative today unveiled the Zii Egg. The device is in its stock form a competitor to the iPod touch with a 3.5-inch 480x320 multi-touch display that supports music, photo and video playback as well as web browsing. Creative however sees the device as a development platform. The built-in Plaszma operating system is Linux-based and therefore open-source, letting companies or end users add software, change features or even replace the OS; the device is ready to use Google's Android almost out of the box.
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07/07, 9:15am
Creative Zii at FCC
Creative's first touchscreen media device has been revealed today through an FCC filing. Just called the Zii, the player is only shown in outline but already reveals some of its key selling points. The name suggests it will be based on the dual-core Zii processor, and an "HD camera" logo near an appropriate port suggests the device will have that level of video capture and playback support.
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02/13, 5:05pm
Zii Android HD playback
Creative subsidiary ZiiLabs on Thursday announced it will showcase HD video playback capabilities on February 16th at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The capability will be thanks to the company's ZMS-05 media processor and platform on Google's Android platform phone. ZiiLabs promises to offer 1080p resolution video playback for the first time on handheld devices.
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01/08, 9:20am
Creative Zii
Creative today finally confirmed the nature of the Zii. The one-time mystery device is now known to be a processor platform based on the notion of very generalized, software-based cores known as Processing Elements: the "stemcell" element from earlier teasers refers to an ability to repurpose any of the cores for a particular task. The process mimics the unified shaders processors of current video cards and is said to provide supercomputer-like acceleration without needing a large processor or a large amount of energy.
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12/28, 9:55am
Creative Zii Early Details
Creative's Zii is actually a processor unlike much of the company's existing lineup, according to info obtained in advance by epiZENter. While the company's own teaser provides little information, the new update adds that the product will be "completely different" from the X-Fi audio processing chip in Creative's sound cards and MP3 players. It additionally won't be tied to any one product, instead finding its way into several devices of an unknown type.
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12/26, 10:40am
Creative Zii Teaser
Creative today launched a teaser for an unusual product known as Zii. The company posts very little but suggests that the device revolves around the concept of "stemcell computing," suggesting that it may involve distributed computing or a parallel to the hardware or software of the Nintendo Wii. Aside from this, the firm only makes the claim that "everything you know is about to change" and provides no clues outside of four-leaf clover graphics.
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