01 Dec 09 Creative announces the Zii Trinity Mobile Phone Platform

Today in China, Creative held a Summit to discuss the future of their Zii Processor, and their business/marketing strategies with OEM partners. At the event they revealed the Zii Trinity, a powerful mobile phone platform. The concept phone shown is running on a linux-based “Zii Optimized” Android OS, and has a 3.1″ multitouch OLED display. Check out the full spaces below:

Features of the Zii TRINITY 3.5G Concept Phone

* Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Tri-band WCDMA, HSDPA Cat 8 at 7.2mbps
* Full featured platform featuring ZMS-05 StemCell Processor
* Linux-based Zii Optimized Android and Plaszma Support
* Accelerated OpenGL ES 3D Graphics, Video and Imaging
* 3.1″ 480×800 16M colour Active Matrix OLED with capacitive multi-touch
* Mini HDMI port for 1080p video output
* Xtreme Fidelity#8482 X-Fi audio technology
* 5M pixel rear facing, auto-focus camera
* VGA forward facing camera for video conferencing
* USB 2.0 Micro port for connectivity and charging
* MicroSD storage expansion and SIM card slots
* 256MB low-power DDR memory
* Integrated Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR and Hardware GPS
* Composite Video output
* 1130mAH lithium polymer battery

Additionally, Creative announced ZiiLife, a software suite designed to accompany the Trinity platform. Here’s a summary of what it provides:

- ZiiLife™ Software, Services and Content Suite
To add value to the Zii range of devices, Creative introduces ZiiLife which consist of 4 main services:

• ZiiMeet – The Next Generation 7M™ Collaborative Conferencing System
  “ZiiMeet is a highly-scalable Multi-Purpose, Multi-View, Multi-Platform, Multi-Medium, Multi-Host, Multi-Party and Multi-Device collaborative conferencing solution that works on PC, Mac and Zii Powered devices. ZiiMeet allows different parties to communicate and broadcast themselves ‘live’ simultaneously across different devices and platforms.”

• ZiiVue - For all your entertainment needs
  The ZiiVue is Creative’s attempt to be a content provider. It boast a wide variety of content offerings such as HD movies, music, and TV media. Creative is already in talks with various music labels and production companies.
• ZiiAcademy - The world in your hands
  “ZiiAcademy is the future of education, paving the way towards a collaborative model for knowledge acquisition and assimilation. ZiiAcademy allows users to explore the information world in an interactive and immersive learning experience, and engage in live discussions. Future Books with embedded video, text-to-speech, dictionaries, online tutorials and even engaging in live dialogue with lecturers or textbook authors can be encompassed in ZiiAcademy, revolutionizing educational pedagogy as we know it.” Sounds totally like the Zii MediaBook.
• ZiiApps - There’s an app for everything
  “ZiiApps works with developers to produce game offerings, applications and utilities that support the Zii Platform. Developers who work on the Plaszma SDK can upload their applications to the ZiiApps store, which offers global support and distribution.” Read: Zii App Store.

Creative has certainly created an attractive ecosystem here, but like the Zii EGG, its success depends on the willingness of other companies to sell them. We’ll update you with more information as it comes in.

[ZiiLABS Announces TRINITY]
[Creative Launches ZiiLife™]

via epiZENter

01 Dec 09 Sony X1000 series finally comes down in price

The Sony X1000 was looking mighty fine to us, leading up to its release. We drooled over its OLED screen, sexy design, and slick interface. Once we found out about its weak video capabilities, and its formidable pricing, the love affair was all but over. To make things worse, both the iPod touch (3g) and Zune HD came out with significantly lower price points than the X1000. Every so often often I’d check in on Sony to see if the X1000 would drop in price, but sadly, they weren’t budging. The other night I visited Sony Style, and to my surprise, the 32GB model was down to $299. The 16GB is was still at 299, but there is hope. Newegg has just started selling he 16GB model for $199. Official or not, it’s about time this player dropped in price. Now if only Sony could convince us to care about it again.

Sony X1000 series (16GB) at Newegg

Also for a limited time, you can get 10% off the 32GB and other Walkman players at Sony Style, plus 100 free songs to download.

Sony X1000 series (32GB) at Sony Style