Except you there, with the freckles. What you’re thinking is wrong. So, so wrong.

Like so many other functiondrogenous tablet-shaped devices, you can expect to watch some media, access some services like Facebook and Twitter, and probably a few other things. Beyond that, it’s pretty much anybody’s guess.

Do you think the versatile Zii will be able to take advantage of any of the cool Opera Unite tools that were revealed a while ago? I’m not a fan of cloud stuff on desktops and other stationary devices, but on a device that is naturally mobile, it’s a good fit.

Creative makes MP3 players. They do a good job. I like Creative. Good people over there. A good company.

But I got this email today describing Creative’s plans with the new Zii handheld and I was immediately struck by a question: What the hell is this Plaszma Zii StemCell garbage?

To recap, the Zii is a new Android handheld. It is basically an iPod Touch running Android. Fair enough. We all like iPod Touches. But Creative is selling this is as a computing platform. They’re calling the actually device the Zii EGG and they’re calling the platform a StemCell Computer.

Now people aren’t comfortable with stem cells in general – most of them are made from bits of humans and animals – and a whole group of people are against stem cells for religious reasons. So there’s Creative’s first problem. Naming your new SDK after something that many believe comes from dead babies is probably a bad thing.

Then you have the Plaszma SDK. Interestingly, in Poland “sz” sounds like “shhh” so this would be the Plashhh-ma SDK over in Warsaw, which is funny enough. But plasma? More blood? Really? And dual consonants? I don’t think Americans like to see S and Z together. It’s seems too socialist.

To be fair, Creative sent this advertisement to developers, asking them to embrace and extend the platform. The EGG is just a low-cost demo unit, in fact, and they want developers to drink their Plaszma Kool-Aid and suck down some StemCells in the quest to produce amazing apps.

Everyone and their dog is trying to make an app store and platform. Most will fail. At least Creative is still good at making MP3 players.

Ah, there we go — a little more info about Creative’s mysterious “Zii” project. It now appears to be an iPod touch-like device, called the Zii EGG, running Android. Interesting… I’m listening.

The platform, called Zii Plaszma (oh, I get it — they stuck an extra Z in there), is capable of displaying HD video both on the unit’s 3.5-inch screen and outputting it to an HDTV as well. The screen just has a 320×480 resolution, though, so HD video will be downscaled. Graphics are handled by an OpenGL chipset that can push 3D buildings and navigation in Google Maps, for example.

Other features include a multitouch screen, 32GB storage space, full-size SD card expansion slot (nice!), front-mounted VGA camera and rear-mounted HD camera, headphone jack, mini-USB port, and dock connector which handles TV connections (composite and HD) and even line in and line out connections.

Connectivity is handled by Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and hardware GPS. No cellular connection, although you could guess that, being open source, there will undoubtedly be a myriad of VOIP apps available.

A $399 unit is currently available to Android developers, while bulk purchases of the Zii Egg with no onboard memory start at $199, meaning the price to consumers may start at around $250 or so. That’s just speculation, though, as it’ll be up to resellers and development companies to set the pricing whenever these things are ready to go.

Full press release here.

ZiiLABS [ZiiLABS.com via Gizmodo]

It does have that iPhone-y outline, doesn’t it? But how else are you going to make a widescreen device that fits in the hand? The lozenge is becoming a very familiar shape these days.

[via TechReport]

At least, that’s the kind of situation I like to imagine when I think of Creative’s less-than-creatively-named-and-logo’d Zii devices, whatever they are. EpiZENter, a Creative devices news site, got these little shots in their inbox, and they share my skepticism. What exactly is it that is different about this interface?

If you’ll allow a bit of speculation on my part, I’d say that this “stemcell computing” thing is a way of saying that their new generation of stuff is going to be flexible and modular. This little interface doesn’t really reflect that, so I’m going to go ahead and give this one a hearty “eh.”

The Zii.com site itself simply says “Zii.com Stemcell Computing” and contains a link to register for e-mail updates. The logo is surrounded by quivering four-leaf clovers. Weird.

Whatever the case, I’m going to go out on a short limb and guess that we’re not looking at a new gadget. Perhaps it’s some sort of computer cluster geared toward stem cell research and – gasp! – cloning. The logo doesn’t tell us much, but I keep getting fixated on the two “I”s – the lower part of one of them is upside-down and the other one’s right-side up. Also, as Engadget points out, it looks an awful lot like the Wii logo.