Aqua-Soft ForumsBrief History:
By now, most of us know what an iPod is.. and it's creator company, apple does not need introduction. Apple iPod, is currently positioned as number one mp3 player and hold a large share in mp3 player market. It's been loved by masses for it's functionality, down-to-earth simple usabilty, audio quality and it's one of a kind looks.
Also we know a company called Creative. It's probably the last and best name in audio hardware for PC market. For a record they too have their own line of Mp3 players, with some really good models (called Zen and Zen extra). Now, like many rival companies Creative too tried to take over iPod's domination of mp3 player market. Some time back, they very aggresively declared war on iPod with their new models (calling them "iPod killers"), just to finish off somehere among others below the line. iPod, however remained unbeaten.
Current Events:
1) Creative wins patent for portable media player interface
In what can only be seen as a potential problem for Apple, Creative Technology said today that it has been awarded U.S. Patent 6,928,433 — which it is referring to as the “Zen Patent” — for portable media player navigation. “The Zen Patent was awarded to Creative for its invention of the user interface for portable media players, including many of the Creative Zen and NOMAD Jukebox MP3 players, and found in some competing players, such as the Apple iPod and iPod mini,” the company said in its announcement of the patent win.
“Creative’s invention for the user interface for portable media players enables selection of at least one track in a portable media player as a user sequentially navigates through a hierarchy using three or more successive screens on the display of the player,” the company explains. “One example would be the sequence of screens that could display artists, then albums, and then tracks. When the user selects an artist, the player displays a list of albums for that artist. Selection of one of the listed albums then displays a list of tracks on the album.”
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Now not only Creative have patents in hand for software interface used on iPods, they decide to use it as weapon against iPod, obvisouly their players couldn't do the job.
2) Creative considers legal action over patent violation
Apple may soon come under legal pressure from Creative Technology now that the Singapore-based company has been awarded a patent that it says the iPod infringes upon. Creative has already openly accused Apple of violating the patent, which covers the way users navigate music selections on a portable device, and the company told The New York Times that it is considering every option available to defend the patent, including possible legal action.
Craig McHugh, president of Creative’s United States operations, said yesterday that Apple was the only company identified so far that was in violation of the patent, though Creative was investigating others. “We are looking at all our alternatives right now,” McHugh said. “We have always been very vigorous in our defense of our patent portfolio.”
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Now this really sounds and feels like the ‘sore loser’ is doing his worse here; Creative openly declared war on Apple’s iPod with its “iPod Killers”, that plan went down the drain and caused its stock to fall a while back.
Now they found one avenue to “rip” Apple off and they are publishing the patent news all over the world. Now why isn’t there more news and louder publicity about a stock of Zens carrying a virus worm?? Now that will affect a consumer more directly than anything else.
And talking about worm in Creative Players here's some more details on the news:
3) Creative Ships Wormy Zen Neeons
Creative has shipped approximately 3,700 Zen Neeons that are infected with a worm in their file system.
According to the company's site, the problem has affected the 5GB Creative Zen Neeon with serial numbers between 1230528000001 and 1230533001680. The worm, W32.Wullik.B@mm, which runs on the Windows operating system, will only infect a PC on which it is executed.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant, Sophos, said that, when you connect an MP3 player to your computer, the PC normally treats it as just another disk drive. That means you can scan it with the antivirus software on your computer or have the 'always-on' protection that's running on your PC, intercept the virus as you try and copy it to your hard drive.
So, as long as you have kept your regular antivirus software up-to-date then you should have nothing much to worry about, he added.
The problem, however, is only restricted to Asia-Pacific as the Neeon is not available elsewhere.
Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at antivirus firm F-Secure, said that an infected PC used during the Neeon testing phase may be responsible. Currently there are no leads as to how the worm got onto the player.
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