“Creative today unveiled the Zii Egg. The device is in its stock form a competitor to the iPod touch with a 3.5-inch 480×320 multi-touch display that supports music, photo and video playback as well as web browsing,” Electronista reports.
“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,” Electronista reports.
“It also promises certain technical edges over the iPod through a graphics processor that can not only render 42 million pixels per second but output video at 720p or 1080p through HDMI,” Electronista reports. “The general-purpose design gives it not only Bluetooth and Wi-Fi but both an HD-capable outward camera for taking photos and a front VGA camera for self-portraits or video conferencing. A GPS receiver is built-in for location-based apps even when the Zii Egg is beyond Wi-Fi, and Creative’s X-Fi audio processing is standard.”
“Creative hasn’t specified plans to ship the Zii Egg as its own, pre-packaged device. [Rather, they are] is inviting other firms to treat it as a blank slate,” Electronista reports.
Direct link via YouTube here.
Full article here.
View the press release here.
A 32GB Zii Eg along with the Zii Plaszma Starter Kit (SDK) can be had for US$399. More info here.
MacDailyNews Take: We don’t know — can’t quite place it — but, for some reason, that Zii EGG looks very familiar.
I seem to recognize the form factor from somwhere. Can’t quite place it…
Cool..i likes
So why hasn’t Apple included two cameras as these people have? I like the video conferencing they have going on.
MDN word = reason
I’d like one.
The new touch priced at current $229 will most likely have video. This thing is just a touch with a different OS. Um I don’t get it. How does that movie get on the device? No iTunes. Huh?
Copying the iphone without having a definitive OS or Apps, puts developers back to square one. Why not develop for the iphone and make money? Do the added features seriously drain the battery? What if you spend your life developing, and it never takes off? Competition is good, but this isn’t competition, because it’s not a fully developed system yet, it’s a blank slate like they say, and a winning formula’s in the 10th percentile.
I seriously think this is actually something Apple should fear.
Exactly what I would want: Blue Tooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, HD video, web cam. All it needs is a geocaching app and a decent interface to the desktop (ala Flip Video) and I’d easily consider it over the iPod touch. Battery life? Plastic screen? Those seem a little iffy at this point, but it’s the first real competition that I’ve seen. Now, about that name…
Holy POOP!
Do these people have NO SHAME! At least they used to “try” and not make exact copies…
Wow. Ripping off several other companies (Apple; Nintendo, Zii = Wii; and M$, Z = zune) at once. Bravo, Creative.
Move on folks — nothing to see here!
This should (I hope) become very popular with Linux enthusiasts, with unknown effects from other compact Linux OS competition.
Enough said.
Geektoy™
I want to see my mother trade in her iPod touch for this and then install some OS on it.
The thought is hilarious.
For Apple this is … this is … this is .. an Egg bath.
Bwahahahahahahahaha.
I thought Creative died a long time ago…
I’m having deja vu. Or is that deja zune??
(snore)
This is just HARDWARE! Any jackoff company can cobble together a bunch of acronyms! The magic is in the Software!
BTW isn’t “MultiTouch” a trademarked and patented term?
I have been avoiding anything from Creative ever since their frivolous law suit against Apple making off with $100M. Just a personal stance against this Singapore based greedy and shameless company.
At least they came up with an original idea…. err
Come develop for this new knockoff device or for an installed base of 40+ million and counting? mmm decisions, decisions!
What the hell is a “beeta”?
It’d be pretty interesting if there were a way to install the ipod touch os onto it, sort of like a Hackintosh.
I like the camera set.
“I seriously think this is actually something Apple should fear.”
———————
That was a joke, right?
@Original Shiva,
The reason you seek is actually quite simple. The network infrastructure simply is not in place yet. At present, even on a wired internet connection, video conferencing can be hit and miss in quality (unless all participants are on dedicated T1’s or similar).
Try to translate that down to the connection speeds of handhelds which even over Wi-Fi are slower than their computer counterparts, and you are going to get a less than acceptable experience. If you then attempt to take it a step further and try to V/C over a cellular network… the results would be completely unusable.
Steve Job’s brilliance comes in part from his desire to not include a feature that could only be – at best – implemented in a half-assed way just to be able to say ‘Yeah, we have that’. When processor speeds, battery life, RAM capacities, and network accessibility speeds are up to snuff, we will have these features in the iHandheld lines. Not before.
Looks interesting.
I’m not going to pretend I hate it. It looks freakin’ cool.