creativity

It's a leap-day special: Creative is clearing out refurbished Zen V players for $19.99 shipped. Don't expect any color or capacity choices: This is the 1GB model in white with orange accents (pretty sharp-looking, I think).

There's nothing terribly fancy about this player--no FM tuner or expansion slot, for instance--but it does support music-subscription services. It also allows for line-in recordings, which I suppose is pretty fancy. Perfect little player for the gym, especially if you add the armband (on sale for $9.99). Don't wait: The deal expires today.

That headline is my offhand way of mentioning that Creative just dropped Zen prices: You can now get the 8GB model for just $150, the same price as Apple's 4GB Nano. If that's your budget for a portable media player, which one should you choose?

It's practically a no-brainer: the Zen has a larger screen (2.5 inches), an FM tuner, twice the storage, and an SD card slot for adding even more storage. On the other hand, the Nano is way slimmer and sexier, and iTunes offers a much broader selection of TV, movies, audiobooks, etc., … Read more

In this series of interviews with innovation thought leaders we reach out to innovators in marketing, design, strategy, and operations -- from start-ups, small-medium sized business, Fortune 500 companies, academia, to non-profits -- and asked them to answer the same set of questions.

In this installment, Willem Boijens, Senior User Experience Manager at Vodafone in Dusseldorf, Germany, takes on the questions. Willem has had a wide variety of roles at Vodafone and has seen the large wireless services company from many angles. In his current role he aims to make experiential design a catalyst for innovation, ensuring that customer needs … Read more

Creative, one of the first MP3 player manufacturers to cross the 32GB threshold for flash-based MP3 players, has lowered the price of their 32GB Zen from $349 to $299. Could this price drop have anything to do with Apple's recently released 32GB iPod Touch? I wouldn't bet against it. After all, it sounds much more impressive to say that the Zen is a full $200 less than the competition. People like big round numbers, right? The Zen also has the advantage of SDHC memory expansion, offering a potential 48GB of solid state storage.

If you're looking for … Read more

NEW YORK--When it comes to a strategy for galvanizing young voters in the hours before the "Super Tuesday" primaries, a coalition of big-media outlets chose to throw an online and offline dialogue with candidates. A group of tech-friendly 20-somethings in New York decided the best way to organize young supporters of Democratic candidate Barack Obama would be to invite them to a massive dance party.

Over the past week, invitations created through Facebook and Evite flew around the inboxes of many plugged-in young New Yorkers: an appropriate donation to Obama for America would give them access to an … Read more

It remains to be seen how much Bill Gates' plea for creative capitalism changes the face of business, but it has certainly sparked a considerable amount of discussion at Davos and elsewhere.

It is common for the topic of the poor to come up at the gathering of the mega-rich known as the World Economic Forum. But the notion that businesses themselves are responsible, at least in part, for solving poverty has gained increased attention at this year's forum, according to reports coming out of the Swiss ski resort town.

According to Marketwatch, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced … Read more

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told the corporate and governmental bigwigs in attendance that businesses should adopt a form of "creative capitalism" in which they seek to alleviate the problems in developing nations.

The notion is essentially this: coming up with drugs or water purification techniques for those nations may not be as profitable as catering to well-heeled retirees in Florida, but rewards will come nonetheless, in the form of recognition and, ultimately, a profit.

"Sometimes market forces fail to make an impact in developing countries not because … Read more

UPDATE: The actual speech is available for viewing.

Few people have benefited more from capitalism than Bill Gates.

But these days, Microsoft's chairman is seeing first-hand the failures of the market system and is now calling on businesses to take greater responsibility for those left out in the cold by the free market.

In a speech Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gates is calling on companies to think more broadly about how their products can benefit society.

Much of Gates' work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has centered on two particular shortcomings of … Read more

So you're a fan of intellectual property innovation and you want to bring Creative Commons to Hong Kong. What are your pitches? Exalting the free market and smearing Hollywood.

Creative Commons, founded by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, develops licenses that let creators allow or disallow a variety of reuses of the work. It's catchphrase, if it has one, is "Some Rights Reserved."

Teams of lawyers have adapted these licenses to more than 40 national jurisdictions, including mainland China, but the Hong Kong efforts are still under way.

Rebecca MacKinnon--an excellent media blogger, an assistant professor … Read more