Monday, October 10, 2005

eFrames

I had a wonderful idea about a year ago, but like most of my wonderful ideas, someone had already thought of it and had already implemented it. The idea was eFrames: wireless picture frames which receive images broadcast from a PC or other device.

I thought I'd hit the killer product with this one, but when I found the current offerings out there, I was disappointed by the lack of competition and the high price. (Flickr or Slide needs to partner with someone to get this product on everyone's mind.)

Web photo sites and slideshows and loops are great, but extracting these into your physical home setting would be wonderful. I would love to see the family picture frames on my grandmother's wall cycle from one photo of me to another (only the frame that is tagged with my name of course.) She might think her house was haunted, but it'd be cool nonetheless.

Frames tagged with one or more keywords would give them certain themes: family, nature, animals, Japan, random, etc. Pictures could be beamed from any digital photo device as well as from web-connected devices. Personal or public web photos or images based on tags could be grabbed from Flickr, from your local drive, your website, or your Slide or Loop album. Custom RSS image feeds would also be a neat feature.

This is the future of framed images. Once ePaper and/or eInk have come down in price and can display a full range of colours, there will be many more very cool products. Imagine a large eFrame perched on your wall, cycling through prints of remarkable art from all periods of history from cave paintings to Michelangelo to Munch.

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