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Creative Technology has released some of the facts about its secret Zii technology to those registered on its web-site. But while some facts are now in, the mystery about Zii and stemcell computing completely remains: the world still does not know what Zii actually is.

According to Creative, Zii is stem cell-like silicon that is able to “grow and multiply into different solutions and ecosystems”, which implies that the chip may be yet another massively parallel universal processor that can be used for audio, artificial intelligence, data, graphics, physics, video, etc, processing. The company said that it took a decade to develop Zii, it also cost over $1 billion and took 10 thousand man-years.

“The world is poised to experience a breakthrough that will better lives beyond our imagination. Even in the midst of these turbulent times, you will discover incredible recession-friendly business opportunities that enable you to thrive and prosper,” a statement by Creative Technology reads.

Creative promises that Zii stemcell computing technology may “change life” and will be first demonstrated at Consumer Electronics Show 2009 on the 8th of January.

Tags: Creative, Zii

Discussion

Comments currently: 3
Discussion started: 01/06/09 01:25:55 PM
Latest comment: 01/11/09 02:23:50 PM

[1-3]

1. 
I am sure the 'zii' will be great success,if not creative would not have boldly made great promises.

I strongly believe in the future of Creative.

GOD BLESS CREATIVE
[Posted by: devadas swaminathan  | Date: 01/06/09 01:25:55 PM]

2. 
I'm also sure that Zii, will be a great succes that maybe, if we believe them will change the world; I've launched a site where I'll post all the Zii details: http://www.ziitechnology.com and there all the "Zii-lovers" can debate...
[Posted by: ZiiTechnology  | Date: 01/07/09 01:57:12 AM]

3. 
Judging from the information-free hype Creative has employed in advertising this, I'd really hoped for something a lot more innovative than a "rediscovery" (to put it less politely: rip-off) of what InMOS and Thinking Machines (to name just two) did over 20 years ago. These companies invented new and interesting concepts in computer architecture back then, and failed in major part because they were ahead of their time, so maybe their approaches will prove more fruitful as part of today's technological landscape. Well, the IBM Blue Gene and Roadrunner systems, and the POWER6 CPU with ViVA2, employ similar concepts, so we can say with certainty that they can work well if properly implemented. Credit where credit's due, then, but nobody should be tricked into thinking that Creative has redefined computing, changed the world, or anything like that. In fact, the ARM9 + SIMD architecture chosen by Creative looks mundane to say the least compared to what has gone before.

I also like that the Zii site claims that "it's no good for calculating the decay rate of your nuclear arsenal", by which they mean "totally useless for HPC as it doesn't support IEEE double precision arithmetic". So, a mere mention of supercomputing (much less any comparison with actual supercomputers) is just more unjustified marketing bluster. However, as a SoC for embedded devices, it seems unlikely that Zii's general-purpose SIMD unit and capacity for linking several chips together will provide any meaningful advantage over existing products from other more experienced market players. What niche will Creative find for Zii, then, if any? Well, time will tell, I suppose.
[Posted by: MTX  | Date: 01/11/09 02:23:50 PM]

[1-3]

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