Archive for digital-signage

Frame Media Reinvents Itself as Thinking Screen, Goes After Larger “Connected Screen” Market

Xconomy.com’s Wade Roush has posted a wonderful article about FrameMedia’s new name and additional new goals!  As Thinking Screen Media, the former FrameMedia is still the leader in content delivery to connected screens worldwide.

Wireless digital photo frames, considered one of the hot new categories in consumer electronics back in 2006 and 2007, haven’t taken off as quickly as expected. People love digital frames, but they’ve tended to buy them as gifts pre-loaded with photos they uploaded to the Web, meaning many frames still don’t come with their own connection to the Internet. That’s a problem for Wellesley, MA-based Frame Media, whose whole business, when I last profiled the startup in 2007, revolved around providing fresh digital content for the frames, such as news and sports headlines, weather, and photos shared by friends.

But while Wi-Fi-equipped frames are still playing catchup, another channel for the company’s programming is emerging: so-called “connected screens,” meaning a whole variety of Internet-ready displays that are turning up in homes and offices. As a result, Frame Media is rechristening itself Thinking Screen Media, and going after what CEO Alan Phillips calls “a whole category [of displays] defined primarily by the fact that, unlike PCs, they are limited in their ability to easily search and configure content.” That includes not just digital frames but high-definition TVs, cable set-top boxes, game consoles, Internet radios, and even printers.

Through its FrameChannel platform, Thinking Screen works with publishers such as Time magazine, the New York Times, People magazine, and Weatherbug to offer more than 1,000 channels of content customized for such screens. (Users choose and configure the information feeds at Thinking Screen’s website.) The company is also partnering with virtually every consumer-electronics company on the block—names like Kodak, Motorola, Nintendo, Philips, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba—to make it easy

“Most of the connected screens haven’t hit the market yet, but they will over the next six months,” says Phillips. In particular, Phillips says, “We’ll see an aggressive push by TV manufacturers to enable TVs to go beyond video.” A taste of what he’s talking about already familiar to millions of video game fans is the home screen of the Nintendo Wii, which, in addition to games, offers links to news, weather, shopping, and photos.

The 15-employee startup collected $5 million in Series A funding from Longworth Venture Partners and CommonAngels in May 2008, and there are plans to raise a Series B round this fall, Phillips says. When it comes to supplying content for tomorrow’s connected screens, Thinking Screen has both technical and strategic advantages over existing and potential competitors, he says.

San Diego-based Chumby, whose interactive media player displays information through “widgets” analogous to Thinking Screen’s channels, is the company’s closest competitor, in Phillips’ judgment. But he thinks Chumby will have a hard time delivering content to devices other than its trademark soft-sided appliance, since the widgets depend on Adobe’s Flash video format, which most other connected screens can’t handle. Thinking Screen’s data, by contrast, is delivered using the Media RSS format, created by Yahoo in 2004 and used by thousands of content publishers.

Thinking Screen also has a network of content and manufacturing partners that would be hard for any other company to match, Phillips says. “The barrier to entry is about partnerships on the content side and more importantly on the screen manufacturer side,” he says. “As we create a critical mass of users, the revenue from advertising is shared with both content providers and screen manufacturers, so there is a stream now that encourages the screen partners to make sure that FrameChannel is enabled on their devices.”

Two new products set to emerge from Thinking Screens in the coming months are designed to widen the service’s appeal to consumers. One is a line of inexpensive digital frames dedicated to a single type of content—examples might include a frame that just shows celebrity news from People magazine or news and scores for the Boston Red Sox.

The other is a selection of 35,000 channels aggregating local information. For example, Phillips says, “You could have a Hopkinton, Massachusetts channel, where we’ve licensed content from local news sources, traffic, weather, relevant sports scores, stock quotes for companies, lottery numbers, a Twitter feed from your state representative—everything to do with Hopkinton. So you can imagine watching the Today show at seven in the morning and as a picture-in-picture experience you’re also getting your local town’s feed.”

Wade Roush is Xconomy’s chief correspondent. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com, call him at (617) 252-7323, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wroush.

RMI, FrameMedia, and FrameChannel: Working Together

Over on TechShowWire.com, they’re talking about RMI’s Home Media Player® Application Development Kit, one of the hits at last week’s The NAB Show™ in Vegas.

There are few aspects of the electronics world that I can honestly praise, that do not include FrameMedia in some way. RMI and FrameMedia have been working together for over a year, . . . to enable advanced FrameChannel use cases in wireless digital photo frames and digital signage applications.

Here is the press release:

At The NAB Show™, RMI Corporation, a leading provider of high-performance processors for communication and media-rich applications, today announced the availability of its Home Media Player® Application Development Kit (ADK) challenging the television and the PC for multimedia consumption in the home. The ADK is an open development system and includes a complete software Board Support Package (BSP) for customers and original design manufacturers (ODMs) targeting media-based applications such as wireless Digital Photo Frames (DPFs), Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), Digital Signage, Information Dashboards and other home networking and consumer devices.

The comprehensive RMI® Alchemy-based™ ADK development environment is complemented by ODM partners and applications partners such as FrameMedia, the leader in content and tools for wireless digital picture frames, and CoreCodec, a leading provider of digital media technology. With these technologies included, the HMP ADK provides developers a powerful environment for creating advanced applications quickly.

“RMI is truly changing the way silicon providers work with the development community,” stated Mike Wodopian, vice president and general manager, RMI. “This ADK is the first step in changing the paradigm in the wireless DPF and MID markets. As the open development environment is cultivated, more and more applications and features will be enabled, allowing OEMs to quickly and thoroughly differentiate their solutions.”

Comprehensive Application Development Kit

RMI’s Home Media Player Application Development Kit is the ideal development platform for connected, media-centric devices. The hardware includes a 10.4” high resolution (1024×768) LCD, 2GB of NAND flash, 256MB of DDR2 RAM, Wi-Fi connectivity (through partnership with Atheros®), two USB ports, Ethernet and serial ports, stereo speakers, IR receiver, and a 5-in-1 card reader.

The ADK utilizes the Linux OpenEmbedded environment to create a Board Support Package based on Linux 2.6. It includes a media stack and player from CoreCodec for D1 resolution video playback (MPEG-1/2/4, VC1/WMV, H.264, DivX, XviD), hardware-accelerated DirectFB, GTK+ middleware, a complete toolchain, filesystem, and an example application.

Broad Ecosystem of Partners

RMI’s Partner Alliance has assembled a broad ecosystem of partnerships including ODMs as well as Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) with a range of capabilities and solutions well suited for the HMP and related consumer media markets.

CoreCodec and RMI have partnered to bring the world’s most powerful embedded media player technologies, CorePlayer and CoreUI to the HMP ADK platform. These technologies are included with the platform, allowing third-party developers to add audio, video, and picture support into their applications quickly and efficiently.

“CoreCodec is excited to have our technology included in this offering,” said Dan Marlin, CEO of CoreCodec, Inc. “This ADK raises the bar for digital photo frame and portable media player device capabilities, while significantly reducing OEM time to market.”

FrameMedia has also begun development on the HMP ADK, creating an advanced multi-stream RSS reader with video and audio capabilities for ODMs and OEMs to quickly leverage to enable advanced FrameChannel use cases in wireless digital photo frames and digital signage applications.

“The market RMI is addressing is exciting and we think that our development is a great fit for what users are trying to do,” said Jon Finegold, Co-founder of Frame Media. “We set out working with RMI over a year ago and the advancements that we have seen are unmatched. We look forward to extending this relationship and driving this market together.”

The ADK is immediately available directly from RMI or through its distribution channels for $499.

About Frame Media Inc.

Frame Media is the leading platform provider for content delivery to wireless digital picture frames and connected gadgets. Its flagship product, FrameChannel, can be branded and tightly integrated to work with any Wi-Fi enabled photo frame or connected gadget, transforming these devices into dynamic information appliances. With FrameChannel, a frame owner can program a unique stream of content that is updated dynamically, marrying their own photos with fresh content from a library of hundreds of channels including news, sports, weather, traffic, stock quotes, horoscopes and imagery from leading photographic collections. For more information please visit www.framemedia.com. Frame Media can be reached at info@framemedia.com or 718-235-3006.

About CoreCodec

CoreCodec, Inc. (www.corecodec.com) is the leading provider of mobile and embedded media player technologies for general-purpose computing devices. With over 70 million users worldwide, and 1100 supported devices on 8 operating systems, CoreCodec players and technologies power every class of device. From cellular phones to televisions, PDAs to in-car GPS, CoreCodec is at the center of the digital ecosystem.

About RMI

RMI Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company providing High-Performance Super System-on-a-Chip (SuperSoC™) Processor solutions for the Infrastructure, Enterprise, and Consumer Media markets. Applications include Wireless, Networking Security, Thin Clients, and Connected Multi-Media. RMI offers a broad platform of advanced MIPS-compatible processor solutions with both 32/64-bit architectures supporting frequencies from 300MHz to 1.3GHz. RMI is headquartered in Cupertino, CA with branch and subsidiary operations in Texas, United Kingdom, France, India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China. More information about RMI can be found on the company’s website at http://www.RMICorp.com.

© Copyright 2009 RMI Corporation. All rights reserved. RMI, the RMI logo, HMP, Alchemy-based, Alchemy, RMI Alchemy, Au1250, Home Media Player, HMP Processor, Home Media Processor, SuperSoC, and the other trademarks named on the RMI website are trademarks of RMI Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Written by TechShowWIRE.com · Filed Under Las Vegas

All Digital Media, Inc. Deploys FrameMedia’s SignChannel!

All Digital Media, Inc. has chosen FrameMedia’s SignChannel “to provide a cost-effective alternative to conventional large scale digital signage advertising for small and mid-sized businesses in the Minneapolis region, while generating monthly revenue with minimal upfront investment.”

Alan Phillips, founder and CEO of FrameMedia, tells us that “Digital wireless picture frames offer a great alternative to high cost, large scale digital signage because a wireless Wi-Fi frame provides targeted content based on the flexibility of its placement, such as restaurant booths and waiting areas, without the need for professional installation.  By utilizing SignChannel, All Digital Media has created a win-win situation for both itself and small and mid-sized companies looking to stretch their advertising dollars.”

All Digital Media, Inc. has, in fact, purchased over a hundred wireless digital picture frames and placed them in local businesses with smaller budgets, such as restaurants, gyms, spas, and fitness centers – businesses with a high concentration of clientele/customers – and, by using SignChannel, are able to generate quite a sum, per frame, per month!

“SignChannel has offered us the opportunity to take a practical, grass-roots approach to reaching advertisers in teh local community, right here in the Brainerd Lakes area.  Through the innovative use of a Wi-Fi digital frame, we’re generating revenue with a highly customized advertising vehicle and getting in front of an audience at strategic locations where they’ll be most captive, such as waiting rooms in doctors’ offices or on the treadmill at the gym.  We are excited to be the first in Central Minnesota to provide this unique service,” says Wes Hughes, owner and principal of All Digital Media, Inc.

The full article about All Digital Media, Inc. and Frame Media’s SignChannel, and their VERY cost-effective digital signage advertising venture, can be found and read at The Nearshore Journal.

PhotoVu Wireless Picture Frames: 150,000 Digital Photos in Your Slideshow!

PhotoVu announced, last Friday, that it had released new software that will support a person’s entire photo collections – 150,000 pictures or MORE!

Whether you are a fan of PhotoVu’s wireless digital picture frames or its digital signage displays, this news is remarkable!

Mark Van Buskirk, partner, Photovu, tells us that “As our customers’ photo collections continue to expand, we are pleased to offer this new and exciting, almost limitless capability.  As always, PhotoVu displays an entire photo collection on teh wall in high resolution, so our customers never get tired of seeing just a small subset of their photos.  PhotoVu is unique among all wirelesss digital picture frames in its ability to play 150,000 or more photos in a single slide show.”

PhotoVu products – wireless digital picture frames and digital signage – are “made in the USA,” and can access pictures stored on any windows or Mac computer.  Customers can see slideshows of their pictures almost no matter where they’re stored: iPhoto, Flickr, FrameChannel, MobileMe, Photobucket, Picasa, Web Albums, SmugMug, Webshots, and Windows Live FrameIt.