Creative in bed with iTunes

CES 2009: Spread your wifi spectrum - and music - around.

The Creative Labsters now hop unlicensed frequencies to deliver iTunes muzic to Creative Labs devices.

The Sound Blaster for iTunes uses a USB-connected widget that frequency hops the IEEE 802.11 WiFi channels to deliver high-sample rate audio to Creative Labs Creative wireless receivers. Sound quality is said to be 'CD', but as we know, CD isn't sometimes quite as good as it could be.

The WiFi channel hopping is an unusual but 'legal' way to move the data around.
Bluetooth also uses a spread spectrum approach, but the Sound Blaster for iTunes tries to find unused channels within the 11 to 14 (ostensibly based on your locale as some countries permit 11, while others permit 14 WiFi channels) to deliver music. The idea: tunes that are easily and handily redistributed, if you have Creative-compatible devices. We don't. Some do.

It's ostensibly available in the later first quarter of 2009, and priced at the convenient $US99 price.