EDIT: woops, I now see you want videos... the ceiva frame doesn't do videos or audio, just pics.

Also, it looks bad-ass (if a little unresponsive).

Story time!

In any larger company the downside isn't just potentially larger, it's probably larger in expectation. The employee might sue.

In a startup that's just not even considered. Interesting.

Once your hardware design is worked out[1], you can order a production run[2] of a few hundred units a month[3].

[1] They will be glad to help you design your product too. The last quote I got for an "idea to device" service was $500k and six months from zero-to-production quality.

[2] As long as most of your components are tape and reel.

[3] Some firms have complete facilities in the US and China. Low volume orders can be done in the US while everything else is sent to China.

We've recently learned a lesson about trademarks here. Even simply using the words to in your product description (and not necessarily a product name or slogan) will run you afoul of trademark holders. Also, trademark attorneys will often fish for billable hours with overzealous trademark enforcement.

I don't know how far you've looked into it so far. The product is awesome. Make sure you've got your bases covered, there's going to be some jealousy.

Feed frame? Stream frame? App frame?

Life frame? Live frame? Living frame?

How about...Picwing?

If we're making up words, let's make up one that is defensible, and can be an "iPod" or a "Kleenex" or at least a "Palm Pilot" (ten years ago) or a "Blackberry", etc.

Let hacker's thrive. Give them a great, juicy section of your website. If nothing else, put up a wiki stat, so folks can start talking!

Being able to hack with these and scatter them about the house, add some sort of discovery capabilities (bluetooth enabled wristband? Seperate controller with webcam doing facial recognition? Now we're talkin...) and we're off to the races.

Seems like there are a ton of applications for this, great work!

Count me in for 5 or so of the next run!

The reverse would just be a similar card (probably identical hardware, just different software) that can be plugged into any frame, and automagically download images from Picwing's website, or an RSS feed, or whatever.

I'd buy it.

Take a photo(s) from dig camera and instantly it's published on my and my friend's PicWing compatible devices. From photo frames, to TVs to screensavers to Tivos ..Boxee .. Windows Media Center...flickr accounts, facebook profile, etc...

A mere upvote can't express how good I think this advice is.

"One major flaw would be the price issue - it costs a whopping $249 for a 7″ Picwing digital photo frame"

Maybe it's come down by now, but at that price, may as well buy a netbook.

Before you conclude that the only thing preventing people from owning netbooks instead of appliances is the price, be sure to spend several hours pondering the lessons of Slashdot's infamous initial review of the iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257...

I think this frame is pretty exciting, even if the Chumby is more cuddly.

I'll say this: if the iPhone came in this form factor, there'd be a $3.99 app that would log the contents of your pantry, submit Peapod/Urbangrocer orders, and aggregate/display all viable recipes from Cooks Illustrated. Tapulous would make $2,000,000 off it in their first year. And I'd buy a Picwing to get it.

Not there yet, unless I'm missing something.

I was going to buy a Chumby a while back, but they never made one without leather, and I don't buy animal products, so I think the Picwing is more cuddly than the Chumby, since I don't want to cuddle with dead animal parts.

My first reaction to this video was, "Ooh, now I can finally have a totally awesome alarm clock, and it's not a leater-encased Chumby!" Unfortunately, though, I just got a nice iPod docking clock radio for Christmas from my folks, so I'm not really in the market anymore.

If it's priced at $249, I'll probably pass, since I already have too many random small computing gadgets around the house (XO, G1, DS, Chinese pirate game console portable, Wii, and several regular desktops and a laptop). But, I think for the folks who would be buying a picture frame, spending an extra $100, or so, would be a very easy decision to make. At least, if those folks buying can be made aware of the Picwing.

Raise your hand if you have iTunes ...

Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port ...

Raise your hand if you have both ...

Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device ...

There is Apple's market. Pretty slim, eh? I don't see many sales in the future of iPod.

For my parents baby pics/videos plus easy access to NPR podcasts in the kitchen would be very attractive. One button videoconferencing would be very cool too. Good luck with the manufacturing.

As a true geek and photography hobbyist I wouldn't even think of using it for pictures (LCD, I bet, is terrible - even laptops don't come with decent LCDs anymore) but man... there is so much stuff I could use this for! From weather to error notifications from my production servers, delivered right to on top of my fireplace. Sweeeet.

So this isn't in production yet?

We did a limited production run, but are currently not producing them anymore so that we can concentrate on software development more.

For ex.

1. A web startup could use it to showcase their website metrics (visits,pageviews etc.) in real time. 2. Could be used to show updates about a game - cricket scores for example will be a big hit. Especially inside an office where television is not accessible.

And yes, emailing to a frame is cool, but I'm biased because I'm doing it.

Great - what happens when a prankster starts mailing Goatse to my living room?

Also it looks like emails to this device goes to the 'messages' app for review first [is this correct?]

Could you just have them sent to the picwing every hour or so and you guys display the data somehow?

Also a simple Facebook feed? Using the Python API you can do this in a few minutes, give me a buzz if you want me to paste example code.

Yup, with sleep.fm integration.