frame

2 Pic offers a simple program with options to give your digital photos many of the same effects as the pros. While it does offer more flexibility to edit pictures, it doesn't quite meet professional design standards.

This freeware may look familiar to users who have operated programs such as Paintbrush and Photoshop, but it does not exactly copy either. The biggest difference is 2 Pic's dueling screens. Two portrait-shaped spaces fill up the bulk of the interface, each with lists of icons down the sides for opening, saving, printing, and reversing work. At the bottom, a series … Read more

Sites like Netvibes, My Yahoo, and iGoogle are great for organizing multiple feeds and widgets on a single page, but what about if you want to get your hands on full Web pages? New Firefox tool Foxden does just that, letting you set up a framed page that renders separate Web pages within the same space. This doesn't work on all sites, especially ones that like as much screen real estate as possible; but for some it's a handy way to consolidate pages you want to keep open without filling up your available tab space.

To set it … Read more

The Pandigital PanTouch Clear 10.4-inch frame (also known by the far-catchier name PAN1000DWPCF2) is not only fully loaded with features, but it's really thin, too, at just 0.3-inch thick. The 4:3 frame uses an HD-quality LCD with a 1,024x768 resolution and it has a full touch-screen interface on fingerprint-resistant, clear glass. It's all very exciting.

With an MSRP of $229.99 you better be getting more than just a thin, pretty touch-screen frame, and you do. There's integrated Wi-Fi for connecting to a home wireless network and you'll be able to use … Read more

It looks like Canon and Nikon weren't blowing smoke when they said their high-end SLRs cameras will compete with medium-format digital cameras used almost exclusively by professionals.

Given the image quality advantages that SLRs with larger "full-frame" sensors have over mainstream and much less expensive models with smaller processors, one might have expected another quantum leap from costly high-end medium-format digital cameras with sensors twice the area of top-end SLRs. Not so, according to new DxOMark Sensor test results set for release Tuesday by French test and measurement firm DxO Labs.

The company tested image sensors from several medium-format cameras--the Mamiya ZD Back, Leaf Aptus 75S, Hasselblad H3DII 39, and Phase One P45+. These are the sorts of cameras used by fashion photographers and others who need lush tones, fine detail, and lots of megapixels to handle big photos such as magazine spreads.

But none outperformed the Nikon D3X SLR, whose score of 88 gives it the current top rank on DxO's sensor tests. … Read more

The top two SLR makers have released relatively minor firmware revisions for three cameras, Nikon's higher-end full-frame D3 and D700 and Canon's prosumer-grade EOS 40D.

The fixes generally address rare and unusual problems. One notable fix for the D3 and D700 is for a problem which, as Nikon describes it, "in extremely rare cases, resulted in noticeable black dots in images captured with Long exp. NR (long exposure noise reduction) in the shooting menu set to On." Canon fixed a black-dot issue of its own with the EOS 5D Mark II earlier this month, but Nikon's issue sounds rarer.

Forthwith, the release notes: … Read more

It's not a surprise that the Nikon D3X, the company's brand-new $8,000, 24.5-megapixel SLR, tops DxO Labs' sensor performance test. What is a surprise is the margin by which it leads its rivals from Canon and Sony.

When the French firm unveiled its DxOMark Sensor benchmark test last year, Nikon's D3 was the top scorer at 80.6, a composite number that represents various performance features. Very close on its heels were Nikon's D700 at 80.5, Canon's EOS-1Ds Mark III 80.3, and later Canon's 5D Mark II at 79 and Sony's Alpha A900 at 78.9.

All those cameras were close, but the D3X stands apart with a score of 88. The result shows how much ground Nikon has made up on Canon, which has dominated high-end digital SLR technology. … Read more

Smartparts has added two new Wi-Fi enabled digital photo frames to its lineup, the 10-inch SPX10WF and the SPX19WF. They feature such things as one touch Internet setup and automatic image correction.

As with the current Smartparts Wi-Fi digital photo frames, the new SPX10WF and the SPX19WF have photo e-mail capability allowing users to automatically receive e-mailed photos directly onto their photo frame. They also have Smartparts' SmartFix technology which automatically resizes, enhances, and crops photos to maximize appearance and storage capacity on the frame.

The SPX10WF has an espresso color wood frame with a 10-inch 800x600-pixel 24-bit LCD screen. … Read more

In case you're watching the digital-photo frame market, it appears that prices are coming down nicely heading into the spring of 2009. Hitting stores next month, Pandigital's new PanTouch Clear line features an allegedly simplified touch-screen interface and an eye-catching floating-image design for a relatively affordable price.

The PanTouch Clear models come in 7- and 8-inch size frames. They offer 800x600 resolution, a 4:3 aspect ratio, 6-in-1 card reader, and 1 GB of internal memory. They'll be available next month, with the 7-incher listed at $119 and the 8-inch model listed for $139.99. Both models … Read more

In 2007, U.S. officials recalled melamine-laced pet food that caused the deaths of cats and dogs and lead-coated toys that endangered toddlers. Now, digital photo frames infected with computer viruses are the latest problem import from China.

"That phenomenon apparently has bled over to the digital side as well," Marcus Sachs, director of the Internet Storm Center at the SANS Institute (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security), said of the Chinese manufacturing problems that get exported. "Essentially, it's a supply chain problem. We've become dependent on a cheap source coming out of Asia."

The culprit … Read more