What I want from my Apple Tablet? A Personalized Screensaver.

Many believe that Apple’s pending announcement of the commercial availability of the Apple Tablet will change the consumer technology landscape. I join them in this assessment. The magical Oz of consumer electronics will undoubtedly deliver an experience beyond our wildness information consumption imagination. Widgets, Video-Conferencing, and E-Book functionality are all likely to be included (so report the pundits). But I want more!
I want personalized pushed content! I want a personalized screensaver experience. Yes, I want FrameChannel. I want, I want, I want … Sounding like a spoiled seven year old child, I want my the new Apple Tablet to make me more productive in 2010.
The Alarm Clock widget wakes me up at six and initiates the FrameChannel application which delivers the content which matters to me at that time – local news, national headlines, local weather, weather for the ski house, the Celtics score from last night, the latest pictures from family and friends, the last three Twitter posts regarding our Company, Thinking Screen Media, and the current traffic situation on my route to work – all pushed to my screen! When I arrive at work with my Apple Tablet, FrameChannel delivers the key news from TechCrunch and Engadget and the stock prices that I care about. When I arrive home for dinner, FrameChannel delivers healthy eating tips and relaxing photos from National Geographic during dinner followed by near real-time scoring updates of the Celtics games while I assist my son with his math homework. Yes, all the features predicted by the pundits will be cool, but for me, cool is personalized push content configured on the FrameChannel service. I want, I want, I want it NOW.

Updates From FrameChannel!

It’s been awhile since our last update. In the past few months there have been lots of updates and new channels added to FrameChannel.

Updates

Now Playing – Ever see a headline on your screen and want to read the whole article? Now, if you sign into your FrameChannel account and click on the Now Playing tab, you can will see a list of your channels that have associated stories. For text based channels such as People, BBC, Time, RSS feeds, etc. you can now click through to the full story on the source’s website!

My Account – We’ve streamlined the registration process and the My Account page. Some of the information that was once in My Account (your account’s RSS address, PIN and device settings) is now located on the settings page. You can access these by clicking on the green Advanced button on the top left.

New channels – We’ve been very busy adding lots of new content! A few of our new channels are listed below. To see them all, go onto FrameChannel and check it out!

• Deutsche Welle – 16 new international news and sports channels

• Lottery – Lottery results for the US and Canada

• Better Homes and Gardens “Better Blog” – Content from the magazine’s popular blog

• Sports headlines – 11 new channels covering major league and college sports

• College Football and Basketball – Scores and standings for US college teams

• Hockey – Scores and standings for NHL teams

• High School Sports (US) – Get your local high school’s sports schedule and results

• Entertainment Weekly – Get EW’s daily picks for music, TV, movies, and more

• Facebook® Birthdays – Never miss a friend’s birthday again with birthday updates

• Memeo Share – Share your photos from Memeo

• Digg – View the daily Diggs in 8 categories, from business Diggs, to Gaming Diggs and much more

• US House of Representatives – Search for your local representative and subscribe to their Twitter feed. Don’t know your Rep? Choose the Local category then the US House of Representatives sub category and browse through the listings!

WIth all these changes and additions, we’re sure some of you will have questions and feedback. We want to know what you think! Contact us via our helpdesk with any questions or comments!

Follow us on twitter! We add a new channel everyday that we announce on Twitter. Come check it out to know when we add new channels!

Thank you for using FrameChannel!

Sincerely,

The FrameChannel team

D-Link ships DIR-685 all in one router

We’ve posted here several times about the new FrameChannel-compatible D-Link DIR -685, and now Slippery Brick informs us that this fantastic product has shipped!

The DIR-685 was first introduced way back in January at CES and now the company has began shipping them. The DIR-685 features a built-in draft N Wi-Fi module that allows it to communicate with network attached storage devices.

But that isn’t all it does. That 3.2 inch LCD screen will play streaming video or you can use it as a digital photo frame. If you like stats, it will display status information in graphs and gauges too. Like weather, but don’t have any windows to look outside? You can program the screen to display weather forecasts and other live internet content. This router does a lot.

The NAS feature supports UPnP server functions and BitTorrent downloads. Pick up the D-Link Xtreme N DIR-685 $300.

Thinking Screen Adds iCal Support to FrameChannel, Bringing Timely Calendar Content to Internet Connected Screens

Marketwire has the scoop about Thinking Screen Media’s latest !

EW.com Is First to Provide iCal Content With Updates on Major TV, Music, and Movie Events

WELLESLEY, MA–(Marketwire – October 1, 2009) – Thinking Screen Media (www.thinkingscreen.com — formerly FrameMedia Inc.), the company that is defining the content experience for screens in the Connected Home, today announced that it now supports iCal-formatted calendar- and event-based content on FrameChannel (www.framechannel.com). Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com, the first content provider to participate, has launched several iCal-driven channels on FrameChannel, through which users can view details on the hottest upcoming TV, music, and movie events.

“We are always looking for new ways to share our content, and FrameChannel is a great example of that,” said Cyndi Stivers, Managing Editor of EW.com. “Those who subscribe to our iCal content for FrameChannel will get EW editors’ picks for the best in pop culture every day of the week.”

FrameChannel is a Web services platform that allows users to browse online and select from more than 1,000 content channels, configured for delivery on media players, connected TVs, digital photo frames, video game consoles, Internet radios, telephones and other information appliances. The FrameChannel platform is featured on dozens of devices in the market today from top brands such as Kodak, Motorola, Samsung, Toshiba and many more. Users can combine their personal content (photos, tweets, messages, and favorite RSS feeds) with commercial content such as news, weather, sports, financial and local information.

“We are experts at configuring a wide range of digital content formats for an optimal viewing experience on connected screens,” said Jennifer Sagalyn, VP, Content Partnerships for Thinking Screen Media. “As millions of connected screens hit the market, FrameChannel becomes the perfect service for combining all your photos, social media and information channels, providing a constant stream of personalized information at a glance. iCal support is an ideal addition, giving users access to calendar-based appointments and events from any ical formatted feed.”

Content providers interested in featuring their content on FrameChannel should go to http://www.thinkingscreen.com/content_partners.html. Consumer electronics manufacturers interested in customizing, co-branding, and integrating FrameChannel with their devices should go to http://www.thinkingscreen.com/hardware_partners.html.

About Thinking Screen Media, Inc. (www.thinkingscreen.com)

Thinking Screen Media is a leader in delivering content to “the 4th screen,” a new category of Connected Screens that includes WiFi photo frames, connected TVs, media players, set-top boxes and more. Its free FrameChannel service (www.framechannel.com) can be customized for any screen, and is today available on a growing number of products by top brands such as Kodak, Samsung, Toshiba, Motorola, ViewSonic and D-Link. FrameChannel users can easily select their favorite local, national, social networking, or photo sharing content from more than 1000 channels, and program their devices to feature that content. FrameChannel intelligently streams real-time content from the selected channels, so users can always view the very latest information as they move through their connected home.