Storing Memories

DO you have a photo frame on the sideboard at home? On the chest of drawers in your bedroom? On your desk at work? Do you frame pictures of ...

DO you have a photo frame on the sideboard at home? On the chest of drawers in your bedroom? On your desk at work? Do you frame pictures of your family and put them up on a wall in your home? How often have you wanted to change those pictures but never got around to doing so? Sometimes decades go by and the picture remains the same — not because the picture is still memorable, but we just don’t have the courage to sift through our photo albums and retrieve a new one.

You, of course, get photo frames that can take in several pictures at a time, but that isn’t exactly what you want. Recently, I saw a unique photo frame —one built like a carrousel that you could turn and ensure that a new picture was facing you. But, somehow, that too seems Neanderthal, when you think of all the tech assistance available to improve the simple things in life.

Imagine this now: a photo frame that is actually an active-matrix LCD display, connected to a memory chip that stores several hundred pictures, each a thematic collection. Say one set of pictures is of holidays, another of loved ones, yet another of pets and so on….

Imagine this as well: that you can set up just the right contrast and brightness and hue for each photograph stored on the chip. In addition, what if you could also control the amount of time for which each photo is displayed?

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All this and more is possible with photo frames today. You can simply connect an electronic photo frame to your computer and load all the pictures with just the right settings. Disconnect the photo frame and it is ready to go. Now, every minute or two, the picture on display changes. And by rotation, you get to see every single picture, effortlessly. This is more of less like MP3 players, where instead of loading your favourite songs, you load your favourite pictures.

Sony has begun to market such a photo frame. Perhaps, because it uses the Sony Memory stick, its popularity hasn’t quite spread the way it should have. But it is just a matter of time before others like Casio and Panasonic make cheap electronic photo frames. Be on a lookout for them at an electronic store near you.

(The author is Station Director, Radio City, 91 FM, Bangalore)