With so many headphone choices out there, I generally look for ones that have been deeply discounted from a starting price of over $100.

It’s a crude method, I know, but the time I save headphone shopping can be spent doing things I enjoy more, like not running and not volunteering.

If you’re looking for a pair of deeply discounted over-the-ear headphones that appear to be somewhat stylish and somewhat comfortable, howsabout picking up the Creative Aurvana Live! Headphones? You can get them at Buy.com for $69.99, down from $149.99.

Creative Aurvana Live! Headphones [Buy.com] via dealnews

The Register is reporting that Creative has reinstated programmer Daniel_K’s Creative Vista driver on the official Creative sight and that, well, actually I’m not sure what they’re saying here:

We have read the strong feedback about Creative’s forum post regarding driver development by daniel_k and other outside parties.
Creative’s message tried to address our concern about the improper distribution of certain software, which is the property of other companies. However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties.

The huge task of developing driver updates to accommodate the many changes in the Vista operating system and the extensive testing required, including the lengthy Vista certification requirements for audio, makes it very difficult for Creative to develop updates for all past products.

Outside developers have been very helpful to Creative and our customers by developing updates for many of our Sound Blaster products, and we do support and appreciate these efforts. This however does not extend to the unauthorized distribution of other companies’ property.

We hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with daniel_k in supporting his efforts in driver development. Going forward, we are committed to doing a better job of working more closely with third parties to support their development for our products and our customers.

The original email, sent by Phil O’Shaughnessy (who is actually a pretty cool guy) isn’t scathing but it was a bit insulting. While it’s well within their rights to blow someone off their forums, their suggestion that he is profiting by rewriting Creative drivers is fairly ludicrous. The kid did a lot of work to get his hardware to work and put up a donation button. That’s hardly formalized profit motive. He wanted a few beers.

This sort of thing is obviously getting more and more prevalent, especially with the driver problems with Vista, and all it does is make a big Internet stink ball and make everyone mad. Companies: chill.

We’re going to try to think like Creative here. Let’s say we, as Creative, insist that our drivers for our multimedia cards were Vista-ready. Let’s say they really weren’t, they were buggy drivers with missing features. Let’s say we had no real plans to fix this. We’re a large corporation with better things to do.

So let’s say a talented, independent developer takes it on himself to patch the buggy drivers to make things all work well in Vista. Let’s say he even posts links to these patched drivers, which he’s giving away to our customers for free, in our support forum.

This happened. And Creative, instead of certifying his drivers and rewarding him for his hard work in making our customers happy, has banned him — and other users — from the forums and took down the links to the superior drivers.

That’s just bad customer service.

Ahh, CES. Where the weak are killed and eaten. And where zillions of companies decide to debut products that should’ve been smothered at birth. But a few things actually managed to impress me so far as I stumble through CES and its constellation of surrounding events. So here they are, a handful of goodies I saw and heard that make my ears glad to be attached to my head.

At least, before Seth Porges (Popular Mechanics), Richard Blakely (Gawker), his assistant Nick, and I went to see Smashmouth at the Palms hotel. Now my ears simply hate me.

Images and first-hand accounts after the jump.
Read More

Hmmm… a wee video phone by Creative? Found on the FCC website? With RCA out and a little webcam? A way to just drop a little device on a table and talk to momma a thousand miles away? Looks that way. Expect to see this little gem at CES but you can see it now on the FCC website.

Creative resurrects video phone with InPerson [Electronista]

I’m not saying people will be rushing to pick up a Zen or anything, but it should be noted that Creative has announced the world’s first flash-based 32GB PMP and it’s the size of a CC. What else does $378 get you? That’s not a type typo, either, it’s $378. That’s cheap. Super cheap for 32GB of flash memory. A 2.5-inch display, 30 hours of music playback, five hours of video playback and an SD card slot. Holy balls! Could the 32GB iPod Touch be on its way? Maybe, just maybe, at MacWorld in January? Please say it’s true, Apple.

Press Release

Staples.com has the 1GB Creative ZEN Stone for $35, which includes free shipping.

Not too shabby if you need a MP3 player for working out. Might make a good gift idea too. The rechargeable lithium-ion battery is good for 10 hours worth of music and the player also includes support for Audible.com’s audio book format.

Creative Labs ZEN Stone 1GB MP3 Player, Black [Staples.com] via dealnews

Creative’s Zen line of media players hasn’t stolen much thunder from the iPod, but it has been more successful than many. The latest, dubbed simply the Creative Zen, is a flash-based player that does video on a 2.5-inch screen and rocks a full-size SD card slot. It’s not bad-looking, and it resembles the Zen Vision in many of the right ways. But its boatload of features and attractive interface — not to mention reasonable price — are offset by a few flaws. Then again, it comes in a 16GB version (in addition to 4GB and 8GB), so that may be reason enough to buy for many.

Read More