Creative Zen X-Fi Does Wi-Fi, IM

By Nick Mokey Published July 14, 2008

Creative Zen X-Fi Does Wi-Fi, IM

After rumors trickled out last week about an upcoming Wi-Fi-enabled media player from Creative, the company finally dropped the curtain on Monday and revealed the new Zen X-Fi. Copping the “Xi-Fi” branding from its own line of premium PC audio hardware, Creative is billing the new Zen as a hi-fidelity MP3 player.

According to the company, enhanced sound quality is accomplished with its own X-Fi Crystalizer Technology, which restores the high and lows lost to MP3 compression during playback. Creative has also emphasized the player’s quality by packaging it with a pair of its priciest in-ear headphones, the $79 EP-830.

Recommended Videos

The player will be available in two variants: with and without Wi-Fi. Wireless-enabled players will be able to stream music from a home PC, effectively enabling access to far more media than actually stored onboard when used at home.

Other features include an FM radio with 32 presets, a built-in mic for voice recording, and a rather rare built-in speaker. Even stranger, Creative has given the Wi-Fi enabled X-Fi instant messaging capabilities, although the logistics of tapping out messages with its unmarked array of nine black buttons could prove tricky.

Currently, Creative has only released the Wi-Fi versions of the player, which retail for $299.99 in 32GB capacity and $199.99 in 16GB capacity. An upcoming 8GB model with no Wi-Fi will sell for $149.99 when it goes on sale later this month.

Topics

Emerging Tech

Editor in Chief

As Digital Trends’ Editor in Chief, Nick Mokey oversees an editorial team covering every gadget under the sun, along with…

Cars

BYD’s cheap EVs might remain out of Canada too

BYD Han

With Chinese-made electric vehicles facing stiff tariffs in both Europe and America, a stirring question for EV drivers has started to arise: Can the race to make EVs more affordable continue if the world leader is kept out of the race?

China’s BYD, recognized as a global leader in terms of affordability, had to backtrack on plans to reach the U.S. market after the Biden administration in May imposed 100% tariffs on EVs made in China.

Cars

Tesla posts exaggerate self-driving capacity, safety regulators say

Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is concerned that Tesla’s use of social media and its website makes false promises about the automaker’s full-self driving (FSD) software.
The warning dates back from May, but was made public in an email to Tesla released on November 8.
The NHTSA opened an investigation in October into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the FSD software, following three reported collisions and a fatal crash. The investigation centers on FSD’s ability to perform in “relatively common” reduced visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In these instances, it appears that “the driver may not be aware that he or she is responsible” to make appropriate operational selections, or “fully understand” the nuances of the system, NHTSA said.
Meanwhile, “Tesla’s X (Twitter) account has reposted or endorsed postings that exhibit disengaged driver behavior,” Gregory Magno, the NHTSA’s vehicle defects chief investigator, wrote to Tesla in an email.
The postings, which included reposted YouTube videos, may encourage viewers to see FSD-supervised as a “Robotaxi” instead of a partially automated, driver-assist system that requires “persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno said.
In one of a number of Tesla posts on X, the social media platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a driver was seen using FSD to reach a hospital while undergoing a heart attack. In another post, a driver said he had used FSD for a 50-minute ride home. Meanwhile, third-party comments on the posts promoted the advantages of using FSD while under the influence of alcohol or when tired, NHTSA said.
Tesla’s official website also promotes conflicting messaging on the capabilities of the FSD software, the regulator said.
NHTSA has requested that Tesla revisit its communications to ensure its messaging remains consistent with FSD’s approved instructions, namely that the software provides only a driver assist/support system requiring drivers to remain vigilant and maintain constant readiness to intervene in driving.
Tesla last month unveiled the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The vehicle has been promoted as a robotaxi, a self-driving vehicle operated as part of a ride-paying service, such as the one already offered by Alphabet-owned Waymo.
But Tesla’s self-driving technology has remained under the scrutiny of regulators. FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s technology relies on premapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), which might be very costly, but has met the approval of safety regulators.

Cars

Waymo, Nexar present AI-based study to protect ‘vulnerable’ road users

waymo data vulnerable road users ml still 1 ea18c3

Robotaxi operator Waymo says its partnership with Nexar, a machine-learning tech firm dedicated to improving road safety, has yielded the largest dataset of its kind in the U.S., which will help inform the driving of its own automated vehicles.

As part of its latest research with Nexar, Waymo has reconstructed hundreds of crashes involving what it calls ‘vulnerable road users’ (VRUs), such as pedestrians walking through crosswalks, biyclists in city streets, or high-speed motorcycle riders on highways.