In Thursday’s post, Emily wrote about how consumers are spending approximately 10% more on electronics this year, and are expected to spend even more in 2009. These stats don’t surprise me in the least.
WebUser tells us that according to a recent Linksys survey, 3 out of every 5 broadband customers in the UK now have a wireless network at home, and that of these wireless households, 87% have a computer and/or laptop connected to the wireless router.
Chris Dobrec, director of Linksys Strategy and Business Development, says that “The research shows that wireless networking is now a mass-market technology and not only for the tech-savvy consumer.”
The Linksys survey also showed that nearly 100% of those who responded had a PC or laptop at home, 69% had a digital music player, 57% had a DVR/PVR, 58% had a games console, such as Nintendo, Wii, etc., and 15% had a wireless/digital photo frame.
With wireless-digital picture frames becoming more and more popular by the minute, I would take an educated guess and say that that percentage will be rising, and rapidly, too.
The wireless homes will surely take advantage of the connection to purchase a wireless digital picture frame, while less tech-savvy homes will be delighted with their digital frames.
Blogroll, CES, Digital Frame News and Stats, Digital Picture Frames, Industry News, Perfect Gift, Wireless Home, Wireless Photo Frame, Wireless Photos, Wireless Picture Frames, Wireless/Digital Photo Frame
Holiday time is already upon us, and many of you will be traveling soon. December is always a busy time of year: stores packed with people, shelves packed with merchandise, tables packed with food, streets packed with traffic. . . .
FrameChannel can’t help you much with the food, but there is definitely something it can do about the traffic.
Coming soon to a wireless digital picture frame near you (we hope) is Traffic.com. When you subscribe to this feed via yourFrameChannel account, you can find out the traffic situation anywhere you might need to go. Then, you can plan accordingly. Choose your route according to the least congested roads. Get all kinds of traffic alerts.
Um, get these things where?
On your wireless digital picture frame, that’s where. While you’re mapquesting your trip on your computer, you can check out the traffic conditions on those routes via your wireless digital picture frame. If the patterns and predictions are daunting, check out alternate routes.
It won’t be long now. Traffic.com will be available for FrameChannel subscribers very, very soon. It’s going to be wonderful.
And it’s just one of so, so many fantastic things FrameChannel can connect to and do for your wireless frame.
Wireless/digital photo frames are for your pictures, sure. But there are so many more things they can do, too. What fun to keep discovering them!
Blogroll, FrameChannel, Keep In Touch Via Wireless Photo Frame, Products, Tips & Tricks, Wireless Home, Wireless Photo Frame, Wireless Picture Frame Peripherals, Wireless Picture Frames, Wireless Weather, Wireless/Digital Photo Frame
Scott Walker, the assistant managing editor of The Birmingham (Al.) News, has got a great blog post about how he converted an old newspaper box into a web-connected digital frame.
With a newspaper box bought from eBay, a Mac mini, some hardware, and a little deft coding, he was able to replace the box’s window with an LCD panel. Now, every day, the box connects to the Internet over his home wireless network, grabs the front pages of a number of newspapers, displays them in a slideshow in the window, and can even play music. The software he wrote can grabs RSS feeds and email, too.
Not likely the kind of product that could see mass production, but a terrific project with a great result, especially in light of the recent release of a DIY wireless frame kit. Head on over to Walker’s site to see more photos, the process he went through to build the box, and check out a video of the box in action.
A few weeks ago, we addressed the idea that some of the people who will be joining the wireless photo frame world will be doing so by building their own digital frames. For those who like tinkering projects, this is a great undertaking, but it required buying a lot of parts of cannibalizing other electronics equipment to get the parts you need.
Well, making your own frame just got a lot easier thanks to the RedPost/Kit.
RedPost/Kit is a do-it-yourself digital picture frame. The kit, which includes everything you need to build your own wireless picture frame, is designed specifically for people who like to get under the hood of their electronics and tinker away.
The kit features a 19-inch LCD screen, 128 MB of onboard memory, a 512 MB USB memory card, USB and Compact Flash slots, built in 802.11 b/g wireless, and 5 case color options. The frame runs a version of Linux, meaning those who like to hack their products will be able to do most whatever they want.
It would probably be good to have the frame support more kinds of removable storage media and the US$550 price may be a little high for a build-it-yourself item, but I can imagine RedPost selling a pretty decent number of these to the technically inclined.
