Live! Cam Socialize HD

The webcam business seems to be a slowly declining one for Creative. We thought that they have more than given up on it with the drought of new products. But we were wrong. Released today is the new Live! Cam Socialize HD - Creative's first HD webcam! This is one of the best looking webcam that we have seen from the Live! Cam series and with HD, we are sure you would look good too! The Live! Cam Central has also been upgraded to version 2. Some of the new features included are Voice FX (similar to the Sound Blaster headset ones), Desktop Share (where you can show a portion of your desktop to your friend and Media Slideshow (drag photos into Live! Cam Central 2 and it will appear as a slide show to your friends). The Live! Cam Socialize HD will retail at $69.99.



Live! Cam Socialize HD Product Page
Product Demo

Enjoy Wireless freedom with the Inspire S2 Wireless!

I must admit that I was pretty excited when I heard that the original Inspire S2 has gone wireless! What I liked about these mid-range speakers are the really small satellite speakers that can fit in the palm of your hands. And it has an audio-out jack and volume control which is really convenient if you know what I mean. With most phone equipped with Bluetooth now, you can simply stream music from your phone to the speakers in a matter of seconds. While Bluetooth isn't the best way to steam music (music are compressed when streamed by Bluetooth), the speakers are powered by apt-X audio codec which provides low latency audio codec for high quality wireless music playback. There's a 10 meters distance limit for these wireless baby. The only thing holding me back? That $219 price point :(

Inspire S2 Wireless Product Page

Sound Blaster Easy Record

Creative's latest Sound Blaster product is the new Sound Blaster Easy Record. To put things simply, the Easy Record allows you to convert your MiniDisc/cassette tape music into Sound Blaster quality MP3 files. Although I don't personally know of anyone who still uses a MiniDisc player, this product might be targeted at the Japanese market where majority of MiniDisc/Discman were sold. With its cheap price point and bundled software, the Easy Record might not be such a bad idea afterall.

Zii Egg "Clothes Line" Album Art Selection

Since the first Zii EGG was being shipped out to developers, we have seen at least 3 new firmware updates and also a roadmap for the Zii EGG. While the previous 2 firmwares provided minor improvements, the latest 92.02 firmware actually provided new features such as the camera app, SD card support and the - IMO - a pretty creative album art selection. We have seen it (below) in its press images and for the first time, proud Zii EGG owner ramakandra from EpiZENter provided a video of it in action!

It will still be some time before we see the Zii EGG being mass produced for the consumers but it's sure nice to see the Zii team constantly pushing out new features and improvements through the firmware updates.

Creative presents the Inspire S2 - Palm-Sized Satellite Speakers with kick ass subwoofer

Before you diss the Inspire S2 off as yet another speaker system from Creative's ever growing Inspire family (these speakers are mating even as we speak), can I say that the size of each satellite speaker is just slightly larger than the size of a tennis ball? Although ultimately it still defeats the whole purpose of that by having such a huge subwoofer, I believe we can still live with that as long as its hidden somewhere beneath the table as a leg rest. Besides the small footprint of these speakers, I also like the Aux-In input on the satellite and the adjustable bass control. Speaking in Singapore's monetary terms, these speakers are a good $40 bucks more than the recently release Inspire T3130 (also a 2.1 configuration), which brings us to the question of whether the S2 is too expensive for a 2.1 system. Afterall I could add another $10 for a GigaWorks T20 or purchase the Inspire T6160 (5.1) at the same price.

Technical Specifications of the Inspire S2

Speaker Power:
-6 Watts RMS per channel (2 channels)
-17 Watts RMS Subwoofer
Frequency Response: 40Hz ~ 20kHz
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: >75dB
Product Weight: Satellite 0.35 kg, Subwoofer 1.00 kg
Dimensions (D x W x H)
-Satellite 7.4 x 7.3 x 10.3 cm
-Subwoofer 23.2 x 18.0 x 20.0 cm

The Creative Inspire S2 speaker system is currently available at the Creative online stores [Asia & Europe] at the suggested retail price of S$119 or £69.99.

Press Release

Inspire S2 product page