Ceiva Digital Picture Frames

Ceiva Digital Picture Frames : Ceiva Digital Picture Frames Danielle Costine

Ceiva Digital Picture Frame : Ceiva Digital Picture Frame The perfect gadget for sharing photos with the computerless is the digital picture frame. This is a device about the size and shape of an ordinary picture frame. It contains an LCD screen, which displays multiple photos in a slideshow format, and it connects to the Internet via phone line to download new pictures and information to display on the screen. Several companies have made digital picture frames, including Polaroid, Kodak and Ceiva. The frames are fairly similar in construction, though they do offer some different features.

How it works… : How it works… The central processing unit (CPU) in the Ceiva digital picture frame is similar to the kind used in small, electronic handheld games. The most processor-intensive task performed by this CPU is downloading pictures from the Web site. The rest of the time, it doesn't break a sweat.

About…. : About…. The frame has some ROM memory to store the operating system. It has some Flash memory, which is where the pictures, settings and some of the operating software live. Both types of memory are persistent -- no data is lost if the unit is unplugged.

What is has… : What is has… The frame has a 33.6-Kbps modem, which it uses to connect to the Internet and download the new photos you post. The display is a 640x480-pixel, passive-matrix liquid crystal display (LCD) with a viewing area of about 5 by 7 inches (13 by 18 cm). This type of display is thin enough that the digital frame isn't much thicker than an ordinary picture frame. The pictures are displayed in 12-bit color, which means that approximately 4,100 different colors can be presented on the screen.

More about the frames… : More about the frames… The only user-operated controls on the frame are a black button, which adjusts the brightness of the display, and a white button that turns the frame on when the user first plugs it in and can also be used to manually dial in. The Ceiva frame uses an embedded operating system called PSOS. This operating system is designed for devices like PDAs, electrical-testing equipment and set-top boxes.

The Inside : The Inside This circuit card contains all of the components that drive the digital picture frame.

Slide 8 : You use the Ceiva Web site to control just about every aspect of the device. After you buy the frame, you go to the website to: Register it and pay for the service. (This creates an account on the site that is exclusive to your frame.) Upload your pictures and determine the settings.

This is neat… : This is neat… Now you can give the frame to a friend or family member who doesn't have a computer. All that person has to do is plug the frame into a phone line and a power outlet and hit the white button on the back. Simple!!

How it connects… : How it connects… The first time the frame connects, it dials a toll-free number and downloads the settings you created from the Web site. One of the settings is the local dial-up number to be used by the frame. Now that the frame has these settings installed, it connects to the Internet again, this time using the local dial-up number, to download the pictures you posted to the Ceiva site.

Tomorrows Digital Frames… : Tomorrows Digital Frames… The next-generation Ceiva frame will add some neat features such as the ability to print pictures. You'll be able to print them either on a special local printer or remotely through a service that prints the pictures and sends them to you in the mail. It will also have the ability to play recorded sounds with each picture, a Compact Flash memory slot to display pictures directly from a digital camera, and a small remote to control features such as printing and some of the settings that can only be adjusted via the Web in the current Ceiva frame.