Digital frame doubles as a secondary display
(Credit: Akihabara News)Call us eternal optimists, but perhaps companies are starting to figure out that digital photo frames are among the most use-challenged inventions of the digital age. In recent months manufacturers seem to have begun trying to add functions that might actually make them worthwhile, whether they've built in a Webcam or used them for something like the "PhotoPhone," which displays a picture of the person who's calling.
Asus too seems to understand the concept, as it has introduced a 7-inch LCD frame with a "sub-display" feature that can turn it into a secondary screen to complement the PC's main one, Akihabara News reports. It sounds like an alternative to those mutant experiments that have grafted a second screen onto desktop monitors.
The frame itself has a 800 x 480 resolution, 128MB of memory, and a USB connection. It may be slightly difficult to color-coordinate it with your existing desktop, however, as its finishes seem more appropriate for a nursery: "Blush Pink," "Sky Blue," and "Star Silver."
Picture frames (even ?traditional? frames for old fashioned paper pictures) are such that they sit in the background in our homes and offices passively displaying and sharing images of past moments that mean so much to us. Be it simplistic, picture display is the function of the frame form.
Does the average person really want to as you say "add functions that might actually make them worthwhile?" Do frame owners really need to fiddle, futz and get greasy fingerprints on another gadget that has much of the same functions commonly found on their computer, or better yet, their cell phone?
And while we love technology, these are the questions we have had to ask at CEIVA.
CeivaJoe
www.viewpointframed.com