Zii Egg shipped, and vids
A few weeks back the internets were abuzz with love for Creative Lab’s newest PMP/MID combo theCreative Zii EGG. Billed as a development model, the device was rumored to be running Android and or Creative’s own OS “Plaszma” and it all fell under a mysterious term called “stem-cell computing.”
Why should you, and Android devotee, care? Well the device is being shipped, it seems, with Creative’s “Plaszma OS” but is also being billed as ”Android ready.” However, according to Creative’s website, “The Zii Plaszma Platform supports Android and the Android SDK, giving developers the chance to use the familiar Android OS. The difference, however, is the marked improvement in High-definition and 3D Graphics performance.”
Call me crazy but it seems to me that Creative has taken the open sourceAndroid, tweaked it to handle 1080p video playback, added OpenGL ES support and re-branded their version of Android as “Plaszma.” Of course this is purely speculation on my part, but watch the video, read Creative’s website and Plaszma looks very reminiscent of Android.
In fact, Creative says “The Plaszma OS is a robust, full-featured multi-tasking Operating System built on a Linux 2.6 kernel. This enables the creation of native and web-based applications that are significantly enhanced by the advanced 3D media and communication capabilities of the ZMS processor and Zii Plaszma Platform.
The Plaszma OS supports a rich set of industry standard APIs that have been optimized by ZiiLABS. Equipped with a wide range of multimedia CODECs, you can get powerful video, image and audio playback, recording capabilities and advanced audio processing, including a text-to-speech engine. The Plaszma OS also supports a desktop grade Opera 9.7 browser with Web 2.0 capabilities, 2D graphics, and OpenGL ES 3D graphics, plus a powerful intuitive gesture-based user interface.”
The Creative website is also claiming that the “stem-cell computing” is, in fact, a new breed of processor. Again, according to the website, “The Zii EGG is an energy efficient handheld StemCell Computer based on the powerful ZiiLABS ZMS-05 media-rich applications processor. The ZMS-05’s 24 floating-point processors deliver up to 8 GFLOPS of raw processing power, while the StemCell Computing’s flexible architecture allows stunning display of 3D graphics on a small handheld battery powered device. The revolutionary chip delivers a superior experience of media-rich applications on a mobile device. It’s the perfect processing solution for scalability, flexibility and low-energy consumption.”
And, thanks to the guys at engadget.com, you too can now see video of the device running, in the wild as engadget.com is reporting that this video is from an actual purchaser of the device.
The specs are as follows:
| • Capacitive 10-point multi-gesture touch display | • Hardware GPS receiver |
| • 3.5” 320×480 true-color display | • Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR |
| • X-Fi audio processing | • 3-axis Accelerometer |
| • Up to 32GB Internal Flash Storage | • Ambient light sensor |
| • 32MB NOR Flash (Linux Kernel Boot ROM) | • SDHC slot (supports up to 32GB of external SDHC Card) |
| • 256MB Mobile DDR RAM | • USB 2.0 Mini-B (MTP and Charging) |
| • Supports 720p and 1080p HDTVs via HD cable | • Universal Docking connector (USB, Audio) |
| • Composite video out | • Headphone socket, built-in speaker and microphone |
| • Dual cameras | • Supports Plaszma OS and Android |
| - Forward facing VGA camera | • 1200mAH rechargeable lithium-ion |
| - Rear facing HD camera | • Light weight: 108grams |
| • Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g | • 115 x 62 x 12 mm |
R. John Klimut
