From the patent, we can see that the Zii is a wi-fi-equipped touchscreen media player, fitted with an “HD” camera, Bluetooth, and, well, that’s about all we know. The presence of a developer version, called the Zii Egg, seems to promise some kind of app support, though it’d be a mistake to immediately jump to the conclusion that the Zii will therefore have an app store; it could just be a dev platform for third parties who could be developing stock apps for the device.

Oooooooor, as Engadget plausibly suggests, this could be a part of the first wave of Android PMPs, which would, like any Android phone, have root-access developer units. In that case, Creative has what could be an interesting product: a touchscreen, connected PMP with a decent camera and a worthwhile app store, making it a more direct competitor to the iPod Touch than we’ve ever seen before. For now, though, questions! Like what was up with the strange language in your “Zii Stemcell” announcement, and how closely are these two things connected? In due time, I guess. In due time. [FCC via Engadget]

Maybe Zen is irredeemably uncool in Japan, like linsey-woolsey dresses and RAZRs in America. “In the west, we relate Zen to everyday life and design,” says Garr Reynolds, an Osaka-based brand consultant who used to work a well known electronics company on the US West Coast, known for its strong user interfaces. “In Japan, it makes people think of ancient art.”

But that still doesn’t explain the super-complicated menus and the overload of hidden commands that only the most advanced cell phone users (aka school girls and geeks) ever–if ever–use. Like all social phenomena that play out in the consumer market, there has to be some deeply engrained psychosocial and political reasons for Japan’s reluctance to adopt Zen as the next step in interface design.

On one of my more recent trips to Tokyo, I sat down with some tech and culture experts and picked their brains to try to figure out why. Mobile phones in Japan are a multi-gazillion dollar industry, so why aren’t they coming out with the next super-phone? The answer, it seems, lies in some kinks and quirks in Japanese industry and personality. Here’s a quick recap:

1. The politics of Japanese telecom: There are a lot of unnecessary politics in Japan’s telecom industry. Back east, Sony Ericsson and Sharp are NTT DoCoMo’s robot slaves. NTT does all the R&D, creates a software platform, and then tells the handset manufacturers what to make. “Operators set a road-map and provide their own services, like i-mode (NTT DoCoMo’s wireless internet service),” says a spokesperson from Sony Ericsson. “We have to develop phones that match this.” NTT is largely government-owned and has an unofficial and longstanding monopoly on Japan’s telecom market; as long as they have free reign, this pattern is unlikely to change.

Local companies in turn spend so much time and energy trying to meet the rigorous demands of the domestic market that they do really badly worldwide. (Sharp, Japan’s leading brand, is only eighth in the world and only sells 1/40 of what Nokia does worldwide.)

2. Just-in-case syndrome: Japanese technology is all about the spec sheet. In order to compete in the domestic consumer electronics market, it’s more important for a product to have lots of half-assed features than just a few that work impeccably. A new cell phone handset has to have GPS, 3G, e-wallet capabilities, a music player, a TV antenna, RFID, and a whole slew of other features, or it’s considered old news. Nine times out of ten, consumers would rather have more, even though they don’t know what 90% of the functions on their phones are for. Providers refuse to reverse the feature-adding process because they don’t want to lose customers in a fiercely competitive, highly saturated market. It’s a vicious cycle.

3. Software engineers get no love: “Software engineers in Japan make money like Indian engineers in India,” says Chika Watanabe, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who blogs about technology in Japanese. So while DoCoMo owns all the rights and does project coordination, most of the real work is done by small, second and third tier anonymous companies. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the software engineers at these companies made $US30,000 a year.”

Software manufacture is often outsourced to smaller companies that don’t get a lot of say in what they’re making. While the handsets get smaller and better-looking every month, screen savers still feature cutsey flash-based characters from a decade ago. “i-mode was first introduced in 1999, but the basic design hasn’t changed at all,” says Daiji Hirata, a senior advisor at Six Apart. To prove his point, he shows me an old-school graphic of little smiling 8-bit mushrooms dance across the screen of his DoCoMo handset. “They added a little bit of flash, but that was more for advertising, not for the interface.”

4. An affinity towards excess packaging: Think of the Yahoo! Japan homepage, a Murakami painting, a scene from Pokemon, a Pachinko parlour, a Donki superstore–Japanese popular culture icons are often inundated with stuff. While Japan is, on one hand, truly a culture of efficiency (i.e. trains are hardly ever late, parties always end on time) it is also a place where overpackaging is considered totally normal. Try ordering a coke at a McDonalds in Tokyo. They will put the cup in a small paper bag, fold over the corners, put the small paper bag in a small plastic bag, tape the top of the plastic bag shut, neatly place it at the centre of the counter before handing it to you with both hands and thanking you for your purchase. That’s the same number of steps that it takes me on my prepaid Softbank handset to check missed calls. You get the idea.

So don’t be surprised if that cool-looking Japanese mobile phone you bought at a Akihabara electronics shop has a menu that is impossible to navigate, totally gimpy applications, and patchy connections on the celebrated one-seg TV. As with any culture, you just have to adapt to the local way of thinking. (Who cares if it takes you an hour to figure out how to text message your mum that you’ll be late for dinner? At least you don’t have to worry about anything else, since your mobile doubles as a train pass, a credit card, ID, and house keys.)

Well, it sure looks like a camera at least. How great would such a device be if coupled with a super powerful image search engine?

Really great. That’s how great. Really great. [anythingbutipod]

According to leaked specs, the nine-point pad will offer users the option of instant messaging on Windows Live or Yahoo Messenger in a phone-style typing schema. The device will also use wireless to share media between home networked computers and access an Internet-based media pool, called a Public Home Server.

The player is named after Creative’s X-Fi audio technology, which restores lost data in compressed music files to create concert-like audio effects. Users can turn to two X-Fi options–Crystalizer makes audio richer and clearer, and Expand repositions the music to sound like it’s coming from in front of you, simulating listening to a live performance on stage. Check out the manual:

[epiZENter]

Expect to pay $149, $199 and $299 for these little beasts, which is quite good for such a device. I wonder how Apple will reply to this with their alleged chunky nanos.

Product Features
Credit card-sized MP3 player with music, video, photos and FM radio.
Watch 32 hours of videos, enjoy up to 2,000 of your favorite songs or share hundreds of photos with your friends.
16.7 million color support razor sharp display. 2.5″ TFT display allows you to view the screen from different angles.
Use the SD slot to expand your portable media library with music, photos and videos stored on your SD card.
Enjoy purchased or rented movies and TV shows from online services like Amazon Unbox. Event load Tivo To Go movies
Technical Details
Color: Black
Item Package Quantity: 1

[Amazon via Epizenter]