WIKIBOOKS
DISPONIBILI
?????????

ART
- Great Painters
BUSINESS&LAW
- Accounting
- Fundamentals of Law
- Marketing
- Shorthand
CARS
- Concept Cars
GAMES&SPORT
- Videogames
- The World of Sports

COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY
- Blogs
- Free Software
- Google
- My Computer

- PHP Language and Applications
- Wikipedia
- Windows Vista

EDUCATION
- Education
LITERATURE
- Masterpieces of English Literature
LINGUISTICS
- American English

- English Dictionaries
- The English Language

MEDICINE
- Medical Emergencies
- The Theory of Memory
MUSIC&DANCE
- The Beatles
- Dances
- Microphones
- Musical Notation
- Music Instruments
SCIENCE
- Batteries
- Nanotechnology
LIFESTYLE
- Cosmetics
- Diets
- Vegetarianism and Veganism
TRADITIONS
- Christmas Traditions
NATURE
- Animals

- Fruits And Vegetables



ARTICLES IN THE BOOK

  1. Adobe Reader
  2. Adware
  3. Altavista
  4. AOL
  5. Apple Macintosh
  6. Application software
  7. Arrow key
  8. Artificial Intelligence
  9. ASCII
  10. Assembly language
  11. Automatic translation
  12. Avatar
  13. Babylon
  14. Bandwidth
  15. Bit
  16. BitTorrent
  17. Black hat
  18. Blog
  19. Bluetooth
  20. Bulletin board system
  21. Byte
  22. Cache memory
  23. Celeron
  24. Central processing unit
  25. Chat room
  26. Client
  27. Command line interface
  28. Compiler
  29. Computer
  30. Computer bus
  31. Computer card
  32. Computer display
  33. Computer file
  34. Computer games
  35. Computer graphics
  36. Computer hardware
  37. Computer keyboard
  38. Computer networking
  39. Computer printer
  40. Computer program
  41. Computer programmer
  42. Computer science
  43. Computer security
  44. Computer software
  45. Computer storage
  46. Computer system
  47. Computer terminal
  48. Computer virus
  49. Computing
  50. Conference call
  51. Context menu
  52. Creative commons
  53. Creative Commons License
  54. Creative Technology
  55. Cursor
  56. Data
  57. Database
  58. Data storage device
  59. Debuggers
  60. Demo
  61. Desktop computer
  62. Digital divide
  63. Discussion groups
  64. DNS server
  65. Domain name
  66. DOS
  67. Download
  68. Download manager
  69. DVD-ROM
  70. DVD-RW
  71. E-mail
  72. E-mail spam
  73. File Transfer Protocol
  74. Firewall
  75. Firmware
  76. Flash memory
  77. Floppy disk drive
  78. GNU
  79. GNU General Public License
  80. GNU Project
  81. Google
  82. Google AdWords
  83. Google bomb
  84. Graphics
  85. Graphics card
  86. Hacker
  87. Hacker culture
  88. Hard disk
  89. High-level programming language
  90. Home computer
  91. HTML
  92. Hyperlink
  93. IBM
  94. Image processing
  95. Image scanner
  96. Instant messaging
  97. Instruction
  98. Intel
  99. Intel Core 2
  100. Interface
  101. Internet
  102. Internet bot
  103. Internet Explorer
  104. Internet protocols
  105. Internet service provider
  106. Interoperability
  107. IP addresses
  108. IPod
  109. Joystick
  110. JPEG
  111. Keyword
  112. Laptop computer
  113. Linux
  114. Linux kernel
  115. Liquid crystal display
  116. List of file formats
  117. List of Google products
  118. Local area network
  119. Logitech
  120. Machine language
  121. Mac OS X
  122. Macromedia Flash
  123. Mainframe computer
  124. Malware
  125. Media center
  126. Media player
  127. Megabyte
  128. Microsoft
  129. Microsoft Windows
  130. Microsoft Word
  131. Mirror site
  132. Modem
  133. Motherboard
  134. Mouse
  135. Mouse pad
  136. Mozilla Firefox
  137. Mp3
  138. MPEG
  139. MPEG-4
  140. Multimedia
  141. Musical Instrument Digital Interface
  142. Netscape
  143. Network card
  144. News ticker
  145. Office suite
  146. Online auction
  147. Online chat
  148. Open Directory Project
  149. Open source
  150. Open source software
  151. Opera
  152. Operating system
  153. Optical character recognition
  154. Optical disc
  155. output
  156. PageRank
  157. Password
  158. Pay-per-click
  159. PC speaker
  160. Peer-to-peer
  161. Pentium
  162. Peripheral
  163. Personal computer
  164. Personal digital assistant
  165. Phishing
  166. Pirated software
  167. Podcasting
  168. Pointing device
  169. POP3
  170. Programming language
  171. QuickTime
  172. Random access memory
  173. Routers
  174. Safari
  175. Scalability
  176. Scrollbar
  177. Scrolling
  178. Scroll wheel
  179. Search engine
  180. Security cracking
  181. Server
  182. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
  183. Skype
  184. Social software
  185. Software bug
  186. Software cracker
  187. Software library
  188. Software utility
  189. Solaris Operating Environment
  190. Sound Blaster
  191. Soundcard
  192. Spam
  193. Spamdexing
  194. Spam in blogs
  195. Speech recognition
  196. Spoofing attack
  197. Spreadsheet
  198. Spyware
  199. Streaming media
  200. Supercomputer
  201. Tablet computer
  202. Telecommunications
  203. Text messaging
  204. Trackball
  205. Trojan horse
  206. TV card
  207. Unicode
  208. Uniform Resource Identifier
  209. Unix
  210. URL redirection
  211. USB flash drive
  212. USB port
  213. User interface
  214. Vlog
  215. Voice over IP
  216. Warez
  217. Wearable computer
  218. Web application
  219. Web banner
  220. Web browser
  221. Web crawler
  222. Web directories
  223. Web indexing
  224. Webmail
  225. Web page
  226. Website
  227. Wiki
  228. Wikipedia
  229. WIMP
  230. Windows CE
  231. Windows key
  232. Windows Media Player
  233. Windows Vista
  234. Word processor
  235. World Wide Web
  236. Worm
  237. XML
  238. X Window System
  239. Yahoo
  240. Zombie computer
 



MY COMPUTER
This article is from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Technology

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License 

Creative Technology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 
A Creative retail outlet at Marina Square, Singapore.
A Creative retail outlet at Marina Square, Singapore.

Creative Technology Limited (SGX: C76, NASDAQ: CREAF) is a listed manufacturer of computer multimedia products based in Singapore, where it was founded by Sim Wong Hoo on July 1, 1981. The firm employs more than 5,000 people worldwide. Sim is the CEO and chairman of the company. The company's U.S. subsidiary is known as Creative Labs, Inc., a name commonly but incorrectly used to refer to the entire company.

Historically, Creative was most famous for their Sound Blaster line of audio cards. Now they are known for their line of portable multimedia players. Creative has also gained some attention for a legal battle with media player rival Apple Computer, which has been settled.

History

Creative began as a computer repair shop, where Sim developed an add-on memory board for the Apple II computer. Later, they started creating customized PCs adapted for the Chinese language. A part of this design included enhanced audio capabilities, so that the device could produce speech and melodies. The success of this audio interface led to the development of a stand-alone sound card.

In 1987 Creative released a 12-voice sound generator sound card for the IBM PC architecture, the Creative Music System (C/MS), featuring two Philips SAA 1099 chips. Sim personally went from Singapore to Silicon Valley and managed to get RadioShack's Tandy division to market this card. The card was however not successful and lost the competition against the AdLib card which was using the Yamaha YM3812 chip (also known as OPL2). In addition to being a capable gaming card, the AdLib version was also a passable music synthesizer, which was a task the C/MS could not do.

Later, another attempt was made with the Sound Blaster, a card featuring the same chip as found on the AdLib card and with additional digital audio capabilities for playing and recording digital samples. Creative used aggressive marketing, like calling the card a "stereo" component even though the C/MS components offered stereo, or calling the sound producing microcontroller a "DSP", hoping to associate the product with a digital signal processor. This card soon became a de facto standard for sound cards in PCs for many years, mostly by the fact that it was the first to bundle what today is considered as part of sound card functionality: digital audio, onboard music synthesizer, MIDI interface and a joystick port.

Present day

Creative Labs headquarters in Milpitas
Creative Labs headquarters in Milpitas

Creative's most lucrative products are the Creative NOMAD/Creative Zen digital audio players, which is in the same market as the iPod and other portable music players. The Sound Blaster line still exists with products such as Sound Blaster Audigy, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (the first sound card to be THX certified), Sound Blaster Audigy 4, and Sound Blaster X-Fi. The sound card market continues to be a solid performer for Creative; despite steady improvements to the sound controllers built into most PC motherboards, the capabilities of third-party cards tend to exceed onboard sound hardware. Currently, Creative's flagship Soundblaster product is the X-Fi Elite Pro.

The modern Creative Technology has diversified considerably; Their products include MP3 players, speaker systems, webcams, video cards, networking components, mobile wireless headphones [1] [2] and a Liquid crystal display (LCD).

As a corporation, Creative has recently met with some stiff competition. In July 2005, Creative Technology's shares plunged to a new all-time low of $6.25 per share [3] as a result of poor sales in the 4th quarter of 2004 / 1st quarter of 2005 despite a US$100 million campaign to take on Apple Computer and the highly-successful iPod range. This represents a significant change from the $50 their shares commanded in 1998. In August 2005, it was announced that Creative's losses for that quarter amounted to US$31.9 million, going into the red for the first time in three years. Q3 FY2006 losses were US$114.3 million[4]. In June 2006, their stock price was $5.22 per share (up from a low of $4.64).

In May 2006, Creative sued media player rival Apple Computer, alleging patent infringement [5]. Apple quickly filed a countersuit [6], following the suit again in early June with a second countersuit [7].

On August 23rd, 2006, Apple and Creative settled all their patent lawsuits out of court; with Apple paying Creative $100 million to licence a software patent, and Creative signing up to Apple's Made For iPod program. [8]

Products

Creative MuVo TX FM 512mb
Creative MuVo TX FM 512mb

Creative is best-known for:

  • Sound cards such as the Sound Blaster for the PC.
  • Gaming sound systems
  • CD-ROM and DVD players and controller cards
  • Graphics cards
  • Web cameras
  • Digital audio players (MP3 players) under the name of Zen and MuVo.
  • Prodikeys, a computer keyboard-musical keyboard combination
  • Optical Mice and Keyboards

See also

  • AdLib
  • Aureal
  • E-mu Systems
  • Ensoniq
  • OpenAL
  • Sensaura
  • Yamaha

References

  1. ^ Review on CNET for Creative's wireless headphone.
  2. ^ Review on BBC for Creative's wireless headphone.
  3. ^ http://fyad.org/bdt9
  4. ^ Creative Announces Q3 FY06 Financial Results.
  5. ^ Welte, Jim (2006-05-16). Creative sues Apple over patent. mp3.com.
  6. ^ Welte, Jim (2006-05-19). Apple bites back at Creative. mp3.com.
  7. ^ Welte, Jim (2006-06-07). Apple sues Creative again. mp3.com.
  8. ^ BBC News on Creative settlement with Apple

External links

  • Official Creative site
  • Creative Open Source site
  • Yahoo! - Creative Technology Ltd. Company Profile
  • USA Today article on Creative
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Technology"