Looks like Creative will upgrade its ZMS-05 processor to a next-gen version called the ZMS-08. The new system-on-a-chip is powered by a 1GHz ARM Cortex-8 processor, with support for 1080p H.264 video playback, OpenGL ES 2.0 and Flash acceleration.

It will find it’s way into portable media players and offers “low power, high performance” to devices like netbooks, web tablets, TVs, etc. The chip is supported by ZiiLABS’ version of Google Android and the company’s Plaszma operating system. Shipping is expected in early 2010.

A bunch of news broke over the weekend regarding the proprietary headphones required by Apple’s new iPod shuffle. Now that it’s Monday some of the info is cleared up and we can let you in on it. Both Macworld and Boing Boing Gadgets have now confirmed with Apple and third-party vendors that the new shuffle headphones contain a proprietary control chip. And that headphone makers have to pay to license it from Apple.

It’s bad news for sure, but apparently the chip isn’t encrypted, so it’s easily cloned by companies who don’t want to play that game. But those products would be pretty doomed in the marketplace.