Creative Zen X-Fi 2 Trades Buttons for a Touchscreen, High Price for Low

It's a new model name, sure, and the distinctive button panel has been booted in favor of a touchscreen, but the most important part of the X-Fi update has nothing to do with hardware, and everything to do with dollars. More »

Creative Zii Egg Plaszma: Android-Wielding iPod Touch

Spotted in a recent FCC filing, the now-revealed Creative Zii Egg Plaszma boasts some of the world's first "flexible StemCell architecture" that uses 24 floating-point processors. But you may care more because it's basically an open source iPod Touch. More »

Creative SoundBlaster Wireless for iTunes and GigaWorks Wireless Speaker Lightning Review

The Gadgets: Creative's new SoundBlaster Wireless for iTunes dongle, that shares music to little receivers around the house, and also to the GigaWorks T20W wireless-receiver speakers. More »

Nvidia Quadro CX Accelerates Adobe CS4 Up to 11

Along with their 9600M GT card for portables announcement with the MacBook Pro, Nvidia has also announced their new Nvidia Quadro CX. The $1,999 PCIe card, which according to them has been "specifically designed and optimized the Quadro CX to enhance the performance of Adobe Creative Suite 4", will accelerate all most common operations in Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere and H.264 encoding. More »

Ball-And-Socket Lensbaby Composer Adds to Distorting Bendy-Lens Line

Lensbaby has just revamped its line of creative bendable "distorting" lenses at Photokina, and added a new type. This new Composer disposes with the bellows bend/focus system of earlier Lensbabies and has ball-and socket twisting with a focusing ring at the front to let you select the in-focus sweet-spot in your photos. It's also got a new Optic Swap system which lets you swap out the lenses inside for different options: these include standard lenses and a Holga-alike plastic lens. The Lensbaby original is replaced by the similar Muse, with the new swap system, the Control Freak which replaces the Lensbaby3G has it too. Both Composer and Control Freak will cost $270, while the Muse is $150. Check out the press release below. More »

Apple Is So Creative

One of the things I was really blown away by yesterday was the sheer number of colors in the new iPod rainbow. I don't think I've ever seen that many hues of an MP3 Player. Where did they get them all?? More »

Creative Decks Out Zen Range with Patterned Mozaic PMP

Creative is clearly in some kind of rush to get new media players out into the world: first the X-Fi, then the Krystal and now the Mozaic. It's a pretty standard offering, with music and video playing function, a 1.8-inch screen, FM radio and voice recorder, but, like the Nokia Prism, it's its keypad that makes it a teeny bit different. It's a mosaic-themed one, which you may either think is a tasteful dash of creativity, or a daft way of confusing the controls. In black, silver and pink colors, it's in either 2, 4 or 8GB versions for $99, $129 and $unknown. [NothingbutCreative]

Creative Zen X-Fi Gets Launch Timing, Price

We brought you some leaked info on Creative's upcoming PMP not long ago, and now it's official. The credit-card-sized player will come in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB versions, and the larger two will support 802.11 b/g wi-fi for wireless syncing of music, video and photos and an IM chat function. It's got a 2.5-inch, 320 × 240 pixel TFT screen and a SD/SDHC slot, for a max of 32GB of expansion. There's also an FM radio, some PDA functions, and a built-in speaker to support its alarm clock option. Sound quality is given special treatment with Creative's own "crystalizer" and "expand" options. Out in Japan at first mid-July for $166, $213, $307 for the 8GB, 16GB and 32GB versions. [AV Watch]

Zune Hits 2 Million Sales, Drinks Creative's Milkshake

Industry numbers group NPD has just confirmed that Microsoft's Zune's sold 2 million units, just slightly under one year after it sold its first million. Where is Microsoft getting the marketshare for the extra million? Mostly from Creative, who dropped from 4% marketshare to 2% from Q1 '07 to Q1 '08. Apple's also gone down from 72% to 71%, so there might be some defectors in the fruit squad as well. Total marketshare for Microsoft now stands at a decent 4%. [PMP Today via Tech Digest]

Creative Zen Getting Bubblegum Pink Makeover

Looks like the Zune isn't the only PMP to be getting a color makeover, Creative's Zen is in on it too. The new model was spotted at Wal Mart, where it is retailing at $69.99 for a 2GB unit, with no other capacities listed. As far as we can tell, the pink Zen is ready for immediate shipping, despite the fact it is not available at Creative's own online store. The new addition has me thinking it is time for a pink gadget in my arsenal; admit it, you want one as well. [Wal Mart via Geek&Hype; Thanks, pickupjojo!]

Daniel_K, Creative Fixer-Upper, Responds to Corporate Shunning

Remember Daniel_K, the good guy who took it upon himself to fix Creative's craptastic Vista drivers and ended up getting threatened with legal action as thanks for his work? Well, he's spoken out, and he's not happy about Creative's dickish treatment of him. More »