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.

“Family Circle” Article Recommends Digital Picture Frame for the Home

The October 1, 2008, issue of Family Circle has a really interesting article by Christine Wood and Dan Tynan on page 56 called “Extreme Makeover Tech Edition.”  This is an article everyone who owns a computer should read; it’s full of simple upgrades that can make our lives a lot easier.  One of the hints is about what to do with all those pictures stored on your computer.  You can probably guess what the solution was. . . .

. . . and you’d be correct.

This article is about the Crickmans, a family of five in California.  Their computer was a mess, full of unused games and viruses, music and pictures, and all the usual things that tend to pile up in everybody’s computer after a while.  The computer was also full of dust.

The family was given all kinds of help and hints as to how to make things better, and they worked!

The article’s authors had this to say about what to do with this computer’s stored photographs:

“Angela (Mrs. Crickman) switched to a digital camera a few years ago, but now the family photos are less organized than when she got envelopes full of prints.  ‘I know my photos are on my computer - somewhere,’ she says.  ‘I used to make albums so we could look at pictures whenever we wanted.  Now you need a degree in computer science to find a snapshot in our house.’

“Picasa is another convenient - and free! - tool from Google.  It scans your computer’s entire hard drive, extracts images and neatly displays them as thumbnails.  You can cherry-pick the best and delete the duds, then upload to popular sites like kodakgallery.com, shutterfly.com, or snapfish.com or share via Picasa’s Web album feature.

The next step was putting a few favorite photos on display where everyone could enjoy them.  Angela plugged two Pandigital frames into her computer and dragged the photos onto the frames’ icons on her desktop, then set the frames to display a continuous slide show of images.  She liked them so much she decided to buy a frame for her parents.”

What does 11-year-old Sophie Crickman think of the new Pandigital frames?

“”I love everything about the (computer) makeover. . . My friends like to check out the digital frames.”

I would only suggest that if the Crickmans ever get a wireless digital picture frame - and Pandigital certainly makes some excellent ones- that they check out FrameChannel to organize all their content.

Sony Introduces Its Newest Wireless Digital Picture Frame: the VAIO CP1

Just yesterday, Sony introduced its newest wireless digital picture frame, the VAIO(R) CP1 Wi-Fi photo frame.

What will the wi-fi technology in this frame do for you?  Plenty!

A wireless digital frame can stream photographs, videos, music, and anything with an RSS feed directly from your computer to your picture frame.

Xavier Lauwaert, product manager for VAIO product marketing at Sony, says, “How many times have you uploaded images to your PC - vowing to share them - never to see them again?  this new frame provides an easy way to retrieve and share these precious memories that otherwise would have been forgotten.”

Sony’s newest wi-fi digital frame can connect to Google and Picasa, allowing you to view any or all of the pictures you’ve stored there.

Besides all the magical wireless capabilities, the Sony VAIO CP1 can also display images from most memory sticks or SD cards, and if you have a digital SLR camera, you can use your CompactFlash(R) media card.

Or, you can just upload up to 100 digital pictures directly to the frame; it’s got 128MB of internal storage.

This frame’s RSS reader will let you view headlines, entertainment, weather, sports scores, and countless other information - in real time - from the internet.

You can listen to your favorite podcasts on this frame, too.

The Sony VAIO CP1 digital photo frame keeps your pictures and slideshows organized, too.  According to the press release on the SunHerald.com website, “Content is grouped into sections called “frames,” making it easy to enjoy photos, information and music.  You can choose from Slideshow - for movie-like presentations, Flow - which creates a slideshow with fun, special-effects, and Dissolve - a more traditional view that fades images into one another.”

The new Sony VAIO CP1 wireless digital photo frame will retail for about $300.00, and will be available in mid-October.

Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Webshots, Photobucket, MSN: FrameChannel Can Manage Them All!

If you have pictures on Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, webshots, Photobucket, MSN, or almost any other website, you can manage them with FrameChannel!

You can create your own channels, subscribe to dozens of cool channels, get the news, weather, sports, and pretty much anything else, with Framechannel, too.  Plus, your family and friends can email pictures to your Framechannel account!

You can manage your FrameChannel account from any computer, anywhere. It just has to be connected to the internet!

If you have an Eye-Fi memory card in your digital camera, you can send your pictures directly to your Framechannel account, which means that FrameChannel will put them immediately on your wireless digital picture frame!

I have a Digital Spectrum MF 8104, and an Eye-Fi card, and a FrameChannel account, and they all work together like a well-honed machine.

Before I got my wireless digital photo frame, I wasn’t really all that “into” electronics.  That’s all completely changed now.  My wireless digital MF 8104 has improved my life.  Seriously, it has.