IPEVO shows off a what a high-end digital photo frame should look like

Venture Beat — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:00:56 -0800

IPEVO is one of those Taiwanese companies that doesn’t get a lot of attention. It’s been making Skype phones and other gear for a while, and now it’s showing off its first digital photo frame, the Kaleido R7. Yeah, been there, done that. There are a bunch of connected digital photo frames at the International Consumer Electronics Show. But the company is shooting for a high-end product and it looks pretty good.

When you look at this one, you have to ask if these things are more like fashion or works of art than technology.

You can stream photos into the frame, which holds about 512 megabytes of data, or enough for 10,000 photos. You can plug in all sorts of content: a mini USB (universal serial bus) cable, USB or an SD flash memory card. You can stream as many as 500 photos at a time into the frame from sites like Flickr. Since it’s Wi-Fi connected, you pretty much have unlimited storage. Photos will appear and rotate automatically, like a slide show with no end.

This 7-inch frame isn’t met to hang on a wall. It’s really for your office table, giving you a new display to glance at while you’re watching your TV. It has a 16:9 widescreen display but works only with photos. It doesn’t do audio or video and is thus minimalist in its approach.

You can rotate it for vertical or horizontal views, and the pictures automatically resize to fit the screen. It goes on sale online on the company’s web site on March 1 and will cost $199. The company is working on an iPhone application for it. It works for Macs or PCs. You can control the frame from a PC, a remote control or a bunch of buttons that are barely visible on the stand of the frame.

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IPEVO shows off a what a high-end digital photo frame should look like