Digital Photo Frames and the Wireless Internet

As a rule I don't usually get overly excited about commercial electronics gadgets. However, I do like digital photo frames. On these I was an early adopter as marketers like to say. As soon as I heard about them and could get my hands on one I did. Digital photo frames were very popular at Computex last year and the projections for the growth of these products were very positive.

At that time I read (I can't remember where) that future digital photo frames would be connected to the internet and that pictures could be pushed onto the storage device remotely. So, for example, if I bought my mother a digital photo frame (and she lives in the UK), I would be able to push images to her frame from Taiwan.

It seems this concept is being taken further. Current thinking seems to be to establish a wireless link between a wireless modem and the digital photo frame. Then, instead of using memory sticks to store images, images can be stored on a photo sharing site like Flickr or Photobucket and pushed to the frame with RSS technology. According to Digitimes:

"Recognizing that photo sharing is one of the main demand drivers of the online digital photo market, digital photo frame vendors such as Ceiva, Ality and Momento have come out with wireless frames that utilize push technology (mostly through RSS) so photos hosted on the Internet can be sent to the frame. The use of push technology is a clever way to expand the digital frame market, as photos can be sent to other people's frames as well (as long as permission is given) so friends and family can share photos with each other."

Now, another company, UGA Digital , is hoping to take this one step further and offer a more advanced service. Digitimes says UGA Digital has developed an API that "allows photos from multiple photo sharing sites or from multiple users to be aggregated and pushed to a single digital photo frame." Digitimes continues:

"However, while the digital photo frame market is growing, the market for receiving pushed content on a digital photo frame is still very small."

I think this market will grow. It will certainly reduce the irritation of having to download your images onto a memory card and then having to upload them onto a photo sharing site. Using this method the photos can be uploaded onto the internet and will automatically be sent to the digital photoframe.

I wont rush out to buy the latest photo frame. I already have mine. But it will be interesting to see how they develop.

(Original Article: Extending the Internet to digital photo frames)