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.

Embedded Wi-Fi Chips Approaching a Billion Electronics Devices

Market researcher In-Stat tells us that “Because of its large installed base in mobile PC’s and home networks, flexibility, and mature ecosystem, Wi-Fi is a valued. . . technology for the consumer electronic (CE) market.”  In-Stat analyst Victoria Fodale says that “The sheer volume of digital TV shipments will make it a strong market. . . . “  In-Stat predicts that the compound annual growth rate for CE Wi-Fi devices through 2012 will be 26%.

That means that embedded Wi-Fi chips could end up in almost a billion consumer electronics devices by 2012, according to a recent Cnet news article.   In-Stat states that “. . . more than 294 million consumer electronics devices with Wi-Fi shipped in 2007.  But that number is quickly growing and will likely reach 1 billion by 2012.”

In-Stat also reports that because mobile handsets are the fastest-growing embedded Wi-Fi device right now, dual-mode cell phones will become the largest category of Wi-Fi devices by 2011, surpassing PC’s.  There are several reasons so many electronic devices are opting for Wi-Fi connections; for one, prices are coming down, WAY down.  Another factor is increased battery life.  Apple’s iPhone, among others, comes with Wi-Fi.

Right now, most televisions use ethernet for their internet connections, but in the future, digital TV’s “. . . are expected to use Wi-Fi. . . wireless technology could be used to connect TV’s to various devices like set-top boxes and DVD players in an effort to eliminate cords.  The only cord needed would be the power cord.”

David Katzmaier reviews TV’s for CNET, and he can “. . . see (Bluetooth) being used for things like wireless surround speakers and remote controls . . . even to integrate cell phones into the TV experience. . . .”

I am wondering, personally, if wireless technology can make it easy for people like me, with a wireless digital picture frame, to access internet content such as Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube, to name just a few.  We’re already watching videos on our wireless frames; if these bigger sites featured RSS, FrameChannel could pick them up and wireless picture frame owners could watch their favorite videos and movies on our wireless frames, bypassing the television set altogether.

Put A Digital Spectrum MF8104 Wireless Digital Frame in Your Child’s Dorm Room!

Many of you are sending your son or daughter off to college this week, and did you ever imagine having so much stuff in YOUR dorm room back in the day?  I considered myself lucky to have a window fan, and my daughter is leaving tomorrow with a microwave oven, and little refrigerator, a toaster, a TV, and DVD player, a computer, a stereo system,  and a wireless digital picture frame.

Me, personally, I think the wireless picture frame is what she’ll enjoy the most.

Her dorm is wireless, so we got her a Digital Spectrum MF 8104, the same as I have at home.  I’ve not had a single problem with it and I can happily and honestly recommend it to all of you, too.  I’ll be able to send digital pictures to her with lightning rapidity, and she can send them to me, too.  She’s in the process of setting up a FrameChannel account for herself, too; it’s the best content provider out there.

She’s going to subscribe to the local hometown news and her new college news.  She was scrolling through the dozens and dozens of FrameChannel RSS channel choices as I left for the grocery store and when I returned,  she wasn’t finished checking all of them out yet!   She’s going to let FrameChannel handle her Facebook pictures, too.

If you have a child who is leaving home for college, think about geting him/her a wireless digital photo frame.  It’s an excellent way to keep in touch.

Product of the Month: FrameChannel!

FrameChannel has been named Product of the Month at Picture Snob!

To be exact, the direct quotation from Picture Snob, about FrameChannel, was “”We love this service from Frame Channel–it’s simple, useful and a little ahead of its time .”

Read the full Picture Snob post about FrameChannel HERE.