From: Jim Whitehead (ejw@cse.ucsc.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 09 2001 - 16:47:26 PST
Has anyone on FoRK had any experience with the Ceiva device?
The Ceiva is a small, dedicated picture frame that shows digital pictures
that it downloads from the www.ceiva.com service. It seems ideal for my
family situation, where I have remote Grandparents who have a difficult time
using new technology (e.g., are confused by the UI to a microwave oven), and
hence would not be able to handle the complexity of a WebTV. Yet, I would
still like to be able to take digital pictures of my daughter and have them
be able to see those pictures very quickly. Cost is moderate ($250 for the
unit, $50/year for the service), but gives me hope they might be in business
2 years from now (I can see them actually making money at these rates).
My biggest concern is that, since they are so gadget-shy, I would have to
set it up for them the next time I visit. But, if it ever got even slightly
misconfigured, it would prove very difficult to get it set back up again
(like, it wouldn't work until I could visit again). It sounds like it has a
battery backup, so a simple powerfail wouldn't take it out. But, one wonders
about other failure modes such as suspectibility to static shock, etc.
I'll probably end up trying it out, but it'd be nice to hear experience
reports first....
- Jim
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 09 2001 - 16:53:25 PST