Ipevo Kaleido R7 Wireless Digital Picture Frame Debuts in January

The Ipevo Kaleido R7, which will debut officially at CES this coming January, is going to be a real beauty!

With a 7-inch display, 800 x 480 resolution, and that fantastic wifi connection, the Ipevo Kaleido R7 has a ton of positive things going for it already!

One of those positive things is the price: it’s not been officially decided yet, but is predicted to be somewhere between $199.00 and $249.00.  For a digital picture frame like this, with a WIRELESS CONNECTION, that’s fantastic!

Use that wifi to get your pictures directly from your computer’s hard drive, or from a photo-sharing service like Picasa or Flickr.  You can also store up to FIVE THOUSAND PICTURES in the frame itself.

The Ipevo Kaleido R7 has a row of touch-responsive buttons that will scroll through your pictures and do pretty much anything you want done with them.  You can also program your Ipevo Kaleido with the wireless remote, from the comfort of your easy chair.

This wireless digital picture frame ROTATES!  If you have a picture with a vertical orientation, just flip the frame!

The Ipevo Kaleido R7 will ship with its own Mac and PC-compatible software, which will allow you to organize your pictures into playlists and channels (FRAMECHANNEL!) and then you can schedule what pictures are rotated through the display, and when.

I love getting these previews of the electronic wonders that will be at CES.

Giant’s InTouch: Versatility in a Wireless Digital Picture Frame

The International CES isn’t until January 8, 2009, but already the electronics companies are giving us glimpses of what to expect there!  Giant’s booth is one you won’t want to miss.

Jacqueline Emigh, of BetaNews, gives us several peeks into some new gadgets, including Giant International’s InTouch wi-fi-capable web access and audio-enabled photo frame.

Emigh tells us that “. . . priced at $349.99, the gadget contains a 7-inch touch TFT LCD display with 800 - by - 480 resolution, along with 128 MB of internal memory, built-in stereo speakers, and a USB port.  It also accommodates SD, CF, MS, MMC, and XD-Picture cards.  A power adapter is included, but the frame will also run on rechargeable batteries for about 90 minutes.”

The main menu contains icons for photo, media, tools, and RSS news feeds.  The feeds can be set up with the use on an on-screen QWERTY keyboard.  Giant also holds deals with vTuner for Internet radio and Web video access, and with FrameChannel for end user tools for managing content from Picasa, Flickr, Webshots, Facebook, and other Web sites.”

I’m always excited to hear about a wireless digital frame that is compatible with FrameChannel!

Giant’s sales director for new products, Thomas W. Silveria, tells Emigh in the article that one of Giant’s upcoming products is a system which adds phone functionality to the existing frame.

ViewSonic Showcases Three New Digital Frames at CES

Viewsonic added three new digital picture frames at CES this year. Their tagline is that the company intends to “set photos free from the hard drive and bring them to the coffee table,” and their 7 and 8-inch widescreen and standard screen 8-inch frames are certainly going to help do just that. All three frames have 128MB of internal memory and accept most memory cards and flash drives. Prices are low; the three frames will average around $99.00 - $119.00.

Viewsonic understands that most people, after uploading their digital pictures to their hard drive, never see those pictures again. With their three new digital frames, ViewSonic hopes to change that statistic.

“From wedding days and a baby’s ‘first’ to family vacations and birthdays, displaying personal moments through high-quality displays is a natural next step for ViewSonic,” said Jeff Volpe, vice president of marketing, ViewSonic Americas. “Expanding our portfolio of leading-edge display technology to include picture frames is the latest example of how we are meeting digital lifestyle trends and improving how people view and share content.”

As with most digital picture frames, pictures can be uploaded via a USB cable, memory card, or flash drive.

The widescreen 7-inch DP701W4WH has an 800×480 resolution, 220 cd/m2 brightness and a 400:1 contrast ratio (typ) that are ideal for crisp and vibrant images. It creates a smooth progression from image to image, while the white acrylic bezel makes it a perfect fit within the modern decor of today’s homes and offices. The frames can display JPEG or BMP files and also include clock and alarm functionality.

The widescreen 8-inch DF88W-523 and traditional 8-inch DF87G-533 give photos more screen space and personality with audio and video capabilities. These frames display JPEG, BMP and M-JPEG files, and the DF88W also displays MPEG2 and MPEG4 files. Showcasing photos with accurate color, the DF88W offers 800×480 resolution and 300:1 contrast ratio while the DF87G offers 800×600 resolution and 500:1 contrast ratio (typ). With 250 cd/m2 brightness (typ), images are bright and clear. Both frames include an integrated speaker for MP3 sound, a remote control and clock, alarm and calendar functionality.

Whirlpool’s Kitchen Docking Station

We’ve talked about the Whirlpool refrigerator with the docking station before, and how you can put this Ceiva digital picture frame on it. This has been available for a while now at Best Buy.

The kitchen is the most-used room in any house, and it was just a matter of time before someone would think of using the refrigerator for even more things. After all, someone is almost always in the kitchen, and if someone is in the kitchen, that someone is almost always utilizing the refrigerator in some way.

Well, Whirlpoolnow has even more fantastic ways to use the docking station. You can power-up your iPod; you can charge your tablet PC.

Check out this video from CES 2008 just a few weeks ago. It’s incredible!