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January 2002 to March 2002News Roundup Digital Rights File Sharing Technology Products
The latest update of Winamp was just released. Grab it from the official site.
More interesting news on Creative's quick about-turn, after continually proclaiming that the company is moving away from the graphic business to concentrate on its core audio products. In fact, that's exactly what I heard during the Extigy launch. Anyway, here are some interesting articles on this issue: PC World questions the acquisition of the loss-making 3Dlabs and reports that consumer graphic cards could come out as soon as late this year, or early 2003. More: PC World A Singapore afternoon paper has news on the tepid response in the stock markets after news of the acquisition, and Creative CEO lambasting Singapore stock analysts for downplaying his company's performance. More: The New Paper: Will Mr Sim prove critics wrong again? (This article will probably disappear from the site in a week's time.)
Creative now owns graphics technology with its $170m purchase of 3Dlabs, makers of the Oxygen line of graphic cards. The company plans to move into the desktop graphics market. “Creative has developed, owns and markets the world’s highest performance audio silicon technology,” stated Sim. “With our announcement today, we will also own the world’s highest performance graphics technology and a leadership position in the ultra high-end graphics space. For the first time, we will own substantial graphics intellectual property and a formidable graphics patent portfolio that will allow us to achieve a higher level of returns for our efforts as we re-emphasize the graphics category. This is a very different opportunity than when we were exclusively a graphics card provider that relied solely upon chips from other vendors. This enables us to pursue a business model that we believe has the potential for high margins like our audio businesses, while providing even more exciting opportunities for growth and enhancing shareholder value.” It'll be interesting to see how Creative dukes it out with the likes of ATI and Nvidia, which already have some very good technology and talent on their hands. More: The Register, Creative Asia Press Release
Creative released a 2.52.18 update for PlayCenter 2 (versions 2.00 to 2.52), but mentioned that this is only for Nomad users. Check out the new files page at Creative Asia.
Join us as we attend the launch of the Sound Blaster Extigy, held at Creative's Singapore headquarters. Get the inside scoop about the Extigy and Creative's strategy for the future.
The Morpheus fiasco is getting really scandalous, with finger pointing, and worse of all, problems for users of the new Gnutella-based Morpheus client just released. More at CNET: Morpheus Blackouts and bill collectors The recently released blue laser format for high-capacity digital video discs is causing some controversy, with electronic manufacturers and the DVD forum taking different sides in deciding the future of the DVD format. Not to worry, DVDs will not die out so soon. Click here for an excellent report from EE Times. More news from CNET:
The big news must have been the temporary closure of the Kazaa (Morpheus/Grokster) network. More: CNET Meanwhile, armed with Windows Media Player installed on every PC, Microsoft tries some snooping on DVDs that we play. More: CNET, The Register Napster makes the news again:
The regulatory bodies continue their crusade to get people to pay:
Here's something more appaling highlighted in this thread at AnandTech forums. A new legislation in the US called the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) that aims to control everything you do with computers and digital media. And here's more:
The official Sound Blaster site has an interview and tutorial from musician Ethan Winer, as well a three AC3 5.1 tracks from the game Deus Ex!
Berry informs us that there are new drivers for the Live! in Windows Update, Creative Technology Ltd. Media Driver Version 5.12.01.2066, dated 19th February.
Some users have reported that the Audigy crashes with a loud screech that sounds like digital noise and freezes the system. This article at ExtremeTech has more on this issue. The problem occurs in Windows 2000 and Windows XP, but Creative does not acknowledge it as a driver bug but provides some generic troubleshooting tips here. I can confirm that this problem exists, because on many occasions, my PC suddenly freezes with a loud screech just as it was experienced by other users. It never occurred when a Live! was installed. (No other hardware was changed in my PC except for the swap from the Live! to the Audigy.)
Henry Kloss, audio poineer and founder of four of the most high-end audio companies including Creative subsidiary, Cambridge SoundWorks, died at the age of 72. More: Boston Globe | Cambridge SoundWorks
If you're using PlayCenter 2 for your MP3 and media playback, grab the latest update to version 2.52. Download
I just got a newletter that the SoundFont web site is having a special bundle dubbed the "Passport to the World of Digital Music", which consists of Creative's BlasterKey MP3 49-key MIDI keyboard released sometime back, and a SoundFont Player software. Sounds like a good way to get started on composing your own tunes with the Live! or Audigy. The whole package costs US$89.95 and more details can be found here.
Creative Asia has a brand new revamped site, and splashed across the home page is of course the Extigy! Update: In fact, nearly all Creative web sites have been revamped, and www.creativehelp.com is gone.
Here's a SoundFont specially designed for listening to classic game soundtracks back when most games were still using MIDI. Its a 64 MB SoundFont bank, but fortunately the zipped version weighs in at a much smaller 34 MB. Silverspring 1.2 is a compilation soundfont made for listening to classic games' MIDI soundtracks. Made out of free instruments and banks found on the 'net, as well as with some instruments by the author, it's quite large at 64 MBs. It should be worth having for the fans of classic games who can spare that much memory :-P It is a GM soundfont 2 with GS drumkits (standard, room, power, electronic, TR-808, brush, orchestra, kick & snare [SC-88], Alesis HR-16B, FX [SC-88], CM-64/32L). Download: Location 1 | Location 2
3DsoundSurge reviews two speakers, the Polk Audio AMR-130 and the Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks 510D, Creative's answer to the ProMedia.
Soundblaster.com is holding the very first SB1394 contest where 8 lucky people will walk away with a Maxtor 40 GB external hard drive, an Audigy Gamer and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. Sweet!
Sorry guys. It looks like the dot com bust is affecting everything. The poll site that ALive! is using seems to be experiencing some troubles. I'll post again when things are working again.
The old poll got more stale than rotten eggs, so its time for a new one. With Creative being very aggressive recently, launching the Audigy late last year, and following it with the Extigy this month, I think you are curious to know what sound cards would be in everyone's PCs in the coming months. So do help to balance things out by casting your vote! As for the previous poll, it was kinda interesting to decipher. The majority 65% were split between having sound quality/crackling problems, having zero problems, and the rest having minor issues. Some didn't like the functionality/quality of the drivers, while a smaller number had constant driver problems.
Thanks to the folks at Creative, we got the opportunity to attend the launch for the Extigy held this afternoon at Creative's Singapore headquarters. CEO Sim Wong Hoo was exuberant about Creative's shares going up and it seems the unexpected figures for this holiday season bode well for the company especially with the launch of the Extigy. Here's an article in Singapore daily newspaper about the surge in share prices, and it comes with a video clip. If you are interested to take a look at the Singapore manufacturing plant that is used to make Creative products, check out the video clip! They show the Nomad Jukebox on the manufacturing lines, as well as what looks like a Live! card with PC99 colored connectors. Here's another news story on Creative's surprise profit turnaround.
I dropped by Funan Center in Singapore which houses Creative's retail outlet cum showroom called "Blaster Shop". I was told the first stocks of the Extigy will arrive today and will retail at around S$280-299, which puts it at US$150. Pretty affordable!
Lawmaker: Is CD copy-protection illegal?
Despite a fall in sales and revenue due to the downturn, Creative posts a net profit of US$26.3m, significantly higher than the expected US$18m analysts have expected. Press Releases: America | Asia
Philips, one-half of the owner of the Compact Disc format has lashed out at music labels, saying that these protected CDs aren't compact discs since they were designed not to play in certain hardware, notably CD-ROM drives. The disc should carry a warning and cannot use the familiar "Compact Disc" logo. Right on, I'd say! Read more at The Register and also check out this thread at Home Theater Forum.
I'm surprised! Just as we were expecting new Sound Blasters to pop up only one year after the Audigy's launch in September last year, Creative skips their usual one year product cycle and introduced the very first external Sound Blaster! Its a sleek looking external device that hooks up to the USB port. No more messing around with the internals of a PC casing.
The specs are similar to the Audigy, with the notable omission of the SB1394 support for obvious reasons. The cool thing is that it has an onboard 24-bit Dolby Digital decoder, so you can use it as a decoder without eating any CPU time! (Damn. The Live! and Audigy does not even do this when users are willing to use the CPU for decoding!) Since all the DACs and sound chips are on the device itself, there would probably be less noise and hiss too. An excellent product for notebook and PC users who do not want to toy with expansion cards. Here's ALive!'s new section for the Extigy, and we'll post information as they arrive. Please help us by sending any information you see on the net that isn't already there.
Over at Live!center, there's news of a new project dubbed the kX Project to develop WDM drivers for Windows that work with the Live! and Audigy. If you have knowledge of the EMU10K1 and Audigy Processor, do join in to make this a success. Who knows we may even see many unknown and powerful features exposed for our use, especially for the music and effects features that so far have only been available in the form of the "modified" APS drivers!
Paul from Really Effective Software has posted a new update to our favorite freeware sound card utility. Notable additions include more customizable Winamp hotkeys, and Windows XP support. Check out the download section for a full list.
CNET: BMI cuts music deal with MSN, Yahoo
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