Ivy Tech Community College’s Professor Steven Combs Talks About Innovative Use of The Wireless Digital Frame With Toyota, PowerPoint, and Stop-Motion Animation

Welcome to part three of our fascinating conversation with Ivy Tech’s Professor Steven Combs.

FrameMedia: What are some other uses for wireless digital picture frames other than in the home? Do you see a market for them in office waiting rooms, retail windows, etc?

Professor Combs: I recently had a chance to visit and tour the Toyota Manufacturing Facility in Georgetown, KY. One of the first things I noticed was that they made frequent use of digital frames in their displays. In both their mini-museum in their training center and in their welcome center, digital frames were used to display images and short videos about their history and products. I found this very creative, and I noticed that folks tended to gravitate towards these displays to learn more. On occasion, these frames also included some audio narration which I also thought was an effective touch.

One of the ways we use the Pacific Digital product is to display electronic presentations exported from PowerPoint. While the frames don’t support the .ppt file natively, we simply export each slide as an image. The process works well, and the slides look great. If the frame could natively display the .ppt file, that would be a welcome feature as we might then also be able to include simple animations and slide transitions.

One of the most creative uses I have seen recently for a digital frame was in the art of stop-motion animation, where a smaller object was placed in front of a backdrop being displayed by the digital frame. The “set” for this stop-motion animation could now quickly be changed just by uploading a new image. I’m sure we are going to discover even more uses as frames continue to drop in price and become more prevalent among consumers.

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