The Cowon E2 in my opinion is the best screenless MP3 player on the market, but I did take issue with the fact that there was no way to skip folders. From the Cowon E2 review:

“There is one missing, skip by folder. You can skip to the next track all you want but if you have a lot of tracks it might be rough to find what you want. If there was a way to navigate by folder it would make it much easier to find the music you want. It could be implemented one of two ways: a long press on the volume buttons or a combination of skip scan + the power button.”

Cowon sent me an email this morning to let me know this was updated:

“After reading your review, we decided to reflect your advice on our E2 firmware.”

Though I think that the solution that Cowon offers is better than the two methods I offered in my review. It is a similar solution to how it is done on Rockbox. Here is how it now works:

"To skip to the next folder, press FF button shortly, and within 2 seconds, press and hold FF button. (you will hear water drop sound) To skip to the previous folder, press REW button shortly, and within 2 seconds, press and hold REW button. (you will hear water drop sound) - Move to the first song if there is no folder. - Move to the first part of the song if there is only one song. - Skip by folder feature is not supported in shuffle mode."

Join us in the Cowon forums where your opinion matters and respected by the people that make the devices you love.

Find the firmware on CowonGlobal or here is the direct download.

While creative is taking small steps with the ZiiEGG development they have not forgotten about their other flag ship in the Zen series, the X-Fi2. The ADK can be downloaded now and comes with a Zen X-Fi2 simulator, programmers guide, and an API reference. The scripting language for the Zen X-Fi2 is based on Lua. Lua is a lightweight scription language that seems to be catching on. It has been used in places like Adobe’s Lightroom and World of Warcraft.

If you are interested in learning more about Lua, check out their site. If you would like to dive in and start programming for the X-Fi2, a developer group has started in the X-Fi2 Application Development Forums.

I got an invite to check out the new beta software package called ZiiLife. It appears to take on Skype with VoIP taking center stage. In fact the first thing you are greeted with is an option to buy a 3 month beta plan package for $7.95 that includes 360 min of global talk time. This package also includes unlimited 1 to 1 (assuming that video conferencing would be extra) and 1GB of cloud storage. The other option is the free plan in which you can buy credits to call for as low as 2.1 cents per min, unlimited 1 to 1 video calls, and 200 MB of cloud storage.

Phonak – one of the world’s leading hearing aid companies and manufacturer of our current editor’s choice in-ear phones, the Audéo PFE – invited me to participate in an earphone workshop in Zurich, the largest city of the country the Japanese Heidi, Girl of the Alps cartoon originates from.

Not sure what to expect but very excited about the opportunity I hopped on the plane. Arriving in Switzerland, I joined the very enthusiastic and motivated Audéo team for discussions and feedback on their current phones, different possible color variants of the housing, different acoustic filters, outlooks on possible upcoming models, and some general geeking out and brainstorming with this merry bunch of Eidgenossen.

The 'pad seemed to be a big disappointment across the board of fans and foes. Whether it was due to the lack of Flash, multi-tasking, camera, USB input, removable battery, memory card reader, wide screen, ...and the list goes on. The typical Apple hype machine failed, big time. Everyone were dismayed by the fact that its just a big ipod touch and that it was still stuck on AT&T's network.

Oh and then there are all the feminine hygiene product jokes on that horrible horrible name for a product- something everyone seemed to agree upon. Like ipod became a generic name to describe an MP3 player- we will not stand by and watch the tablet computer be called a ipad- a form factor which Apple had nothing to to with its conception nor innovation!

These devices are called tablets- not 'pads.There will never be an awkward moment when your female friend says "Check out my new ipad" and you instinctively glance at her nether region- embarrassingly realizing what you just did. Tablets. Tablets. Tablets!

Here at ABI we will be promoting this form factor and the use of the proper term tablet, in a new anythingbutipad section. In addition to the already amazing MP3 player reviews and content we will be doing the same for the tablet scene. A forward facing blog will arise soon on CrowdGather's amazing new CMS, but for now we will be blogging and creating this content in our tablet sub forum. So join the conversation, there are already quite a few great posts on this blog to be:

• Is Microsoft's Courier an iPad Killer?
• Pad vs Tablet vs Slate - What name to you prefer?
• MSI Dual Screen Windows 7 Tablet
• NVidia's Tegra 2 Will Play a Big Role in Next Gen Tablets
• MSI Android Tablet -"MSI E-Reader"
• ExoPC: Its like intelligent people made the ipad

Anythingbuipad - Tablets not Pads