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NYT Reviews Digital Picture Frames
prostoalex writes "New York Times reviews the digital picture frames available commercially: 'Yes, with the ultimate digital camera accessory: the digital picture frame, a flat-panel screen designed exclusively for showing digital photos. A digital frame can do something no ordinary frame can do: change what's in it at the touch of a button, or even treat you to a slide show. Think of it as a screen saver that doesn't tie up your computer.' For those who would rather build the devices themselves - both Linux Toys and Wi-Fi Toys contain the chapters on creating Linux-based digital picture frames out of old laptops. Channel 9 on Microsoft Developer Network also has a step-by-step walk-through of building a Windows-based digital picture frame."
WHy would I want that if I cant even afford the 21" Flat Screen I so desire? I like my familys photos stuffed away where they can't annoy me.
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
I have seen this idea for ages and seen many implementations (inc. my own) but I still dont understand why people bother. Last thing I need is something stitting on my desk distracting me. Its not as if paper pictures are that inconvenient and sure when you may want to remind your self of what your wife looks like before returing to the wrong home (again) but you have a great big 19 inch screen to look at her with.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Building one seems like a neat idea, but using a laptop seems like such overkill to me, in terms of processing power and power requirements.
Is there some solution like the EtherNut that can also drive a flat panel display? And where to get a decent deal on a flat panel? If I'm builing a picture frame, bigger is better! I guess displays up to 1280x1024 have dropped in price a fair amount, but what about more resolution than that?
Some ThinkPads have got some nice resolution in a small format screen - anyone have a good source for those? (I know, I know, probably ebay!) I suppose in the end the cheapest solution is going to be a whole laptop from ebay... Perhaps diskless and underclocked to reduce the power consumption and heat generation. Anyone tried that?
Basically, you take an old discarded laptop and build a picture frame around it.
I'm pretty sure I can build one for less than $160. Plus, it sounds like a fun project. OTOH, I really like the idea of having a seperate remote like the AV Tech picture frame and similar models have. And having a WiFi picture frame would be neat, I guess (remind me to adjust the firewall rules ;).
... when picture frames have their own IP adresses.
Another option is to get a cheapo portable DVD, in Canada RadioShack has a Nexxtech for C$149. Burn your photos to disc and away you go.
I have a table comparing various digital picture frames.
There have been some public trials of these already. Very good, if you like blue. :-)
As an amature photographer, I wouldn't mind having one, I would love to keep seeing my work as I pass the digital frame doing my business. At the moment they are in a folder on an external drive just sitting there. No point using them for my desktop either because i'm always doing work.
On another level however, I wonder if they could be used in waiting rooms, it would certainly add variety in those mind numbing places.
However, I'd also want as little interaction with the device as possible, just upload the photos, configure how I would want them displayed and leave it. Making it the same 2 steps as with a normal picture frame (nailing it in and then setting up the picture to display). Anything else like useless software is a waste and takes everything away from the point of decorating your room. Just have a simple UI to upload the photos and be done with it, wireless would be nice for the picture uploads and a neat tidy power cable coming out from the wall behind it.
Jonathanjk.com
... cubic inches (of centimeters), as they say in the automobile industry. Well, in terms of showing photos to family and friends, there's no substitute for resolution.
Not until we have a standard 13x18 cm (European size, don't know what the US equivalent is) picture frame that's capable of displaying 3 or 4 megapixels (i.e. the entire photo without downsizing), that isn't too heavy or power-consumption happy and that accepts standard memory cards, this market will bloom.
Come to think of it; where are our 4 megapixel monitors? Why do we still have only 75 or 100 DPI effectively on our current monitors?
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Wife factor is very high, especially because I had it professionally framed, which cost more than the motherboard!
i built one myself using an old Dell Latitude xpi 133, a perl script, and redhat 5.0 at the time...the laptop wasn't doing anything else, so i just did it as a project...i had the perl script generate an html file with javascript that would cycle through all pictures in a given set of directories every minute or two
turned out pretty good except for the UGLY LAPTOP SITTING ON THE TABLE IN THE DORM!
I think it's a great idea, but there's just one issue that comes to my mind here:
.
All we seem to be doing these days is making things require electricity, when they never used to.
I'm not an environmental freak or anything, but it's shocking to see how much we're becoming dependent on electricity; even razors that don't currently require batteries will probably become battery operated, like this
See how many wind-up watches there are these days; at the rate technology is progressing, your average picture frame could soon be battery powered.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Concur.
But a reasonable extrapolation of "outdated" every six months takes us to some pretty interesting country in fairly short order.
Consider, if you will, a roll of wallpaper with a ribbon cable coming off of one edge. Or perhaps small antennae along the back side, every meter or so. Trimmable, ten feet in width, coming in rolls up into the hundreds of meters in length, they soon colonize interior and exterior wallspace everywhere you look.
They work just as well for folks interested in proportion and harmony, as they do for large corporations and folks with an agenda.
We will love our new vistas and will wonder how people got along without them for so long.
Is it fascism yet?