January 12, 2009, 1:37 PM — OLED televisions are popular gadgets at CES, but Kodak showed off an OLED photo frame this year at the show.
The frame is 3 millimeters thick and using the OLED technology, it allows for a 180 degree viewing angle.
According to Patrick Cowan, product manager for Kodak, the company invented OLED technology in the 1970s and currently holds more than 2,000 patents on it.
"This [photo frame] is really a statement around a product that we developed in the lab and brought to consumer availability," Cowan said.
OLED screens have pixels that contain an organic material that emits its own light so no backlight is needed. That helps make the displays thinner and reduce power consumption.
Along the sides and bottom of the frame are touch controls that drive the on screen menus. The frame can play still-picture slideshows, videos and even pull RSS weather and news feeds, since it is Wi-Fi enabled. Users can move images from their computer directly to the frame over a home Wi-Fi network. They can also connect to third party photo sharing sites like Flickr and Kodak Gallery and pull content down to the frame.
The frame has a contrast ratio of 30,000:1 and a display resolution of 800 by 480 pixels. It has 2GB of internal memory and supports most memory card types. The photo frame is available now for US$1,000.
