WiFi photo frames are nothing new. Estarling have been pioneers into this technology for a while now and you have long been able to email your photos directly to the frame with their products. There is something attractive about not just you but the stuff you own having it’s own email address. The problem was that the early models tended to have more frame than photo and didn’t exactly look good on top of your grandma’s mahogany table.

Without doubt digital photo frames are an excellent choice for mobile owners who take pictures. Too often our pictures remain on our phones or buried on computer hard drives and rarely do we ‘develop’ any shots we’ve taken with our phones. This makes photo fames a great proposition, particularly as pictures from camera phones are now realistically reaching a displayable picture quality.

Prices for the standard memory stick frames are now thankfully dropping but for the best in ease of use and operability the Estarling WiFi frames look very promising. You’ll be able to email photos directly from phone to the frame, which doesn’t leave any excuse for not getting your pictures off your phone and displayed.

The frame also has RSS feed capability so you’ll be able to display all manner of photos from Flickr and other online photo sites and comes with quirky features like being able to send the frame text messages and email pictures to other people directly from the frame. They’ve even sorted out the styling.

Got piles of DVD’s lying around your house from transferring downloaded video content so you can play it on your TV? Having to move your computer so you can plug it into the TV? This is the problem TakeTV attempts to solve – by using a USB flash drive.

It’s a simple device and fairly innovative in that there is nothing much around that rivals it. You drag and drop files from your computer onto the drive and then use the dock provided to connect it to your TV with either s-video or composite connections. You then control it with a small remote. It also comes with compatibility for Fanfare (beta), a DRM service from a selection of American networks including CBS, which I’m less interested in.

Of interest to me is the DivX and MPEG-4 compatibility of the device, (it also does XviD) and the obvious advantage of using it in conjunction with the Viewty for watching video back on your TV. As video taken on your mobile tends not to have a huge shelf life, the TakeTV is excellent as you don’t have to burn a disc you might only watch several times. Also, giving the slow motion video recording a good airing on a large screen should be high on the agenda of any Viewty owner and this is easy with the TakeTV.

This is a simple solution and whilst not particularly innovative it is inventive. I like the fact there is no wireless syncing or multi-functionality and by sticking to just being one thing it can be used across a wide range of digital devices.

I notice that the Commodore Gravel In Pocket is arriving onto the UK market. It’s a small video and music player controlled by a cheekily designed joystick at the back although from the footage I’ve seen it looks like you need two hands to operate it. It also supports WiFi with access to Commodore World but unfortunately no web browser.

What struck me most about the watching the demos was that increasingly, it seems people are viewing video on smaller and smaller screens. The Gravel has 2.8 inch screen which is large by some standards. The Cowon iAudio 7 for instance, has a 1.3 inch screen and is XviD compatible and Cowon obviously thinks there is a market for video playback in such a small space. The Viewty’s display is also part of this tendency towards smaller screens, although at 3 inch widescreen you get just that little bit of extra area which makes a lot of difference when watching video.

Clearly there is a demand. Players are coming out with expanding list of compatible formats, the Viewty is DivX compatible and the Gravel will play both DivX and XviD. The DivX codec has been downloaded 80 million times in last year and as one of their stated goals is interoperability it’s a good format for the portable market.

As people get used to viewing video on such a small screen and expectations of quality rise, plus the demand for portability that these devices provide, things like DivX compatibility are important features.

With the launch of the Viewty round the corner there’s a bit of buzz about LG’s latest handset. TechDigest have a report after having a play with it in Seoul (with some video available here) and we’re glad that they were impressed with the video playback and the camera:

Us bloggers can bang on about Viewty being an iPhone killer, but LG isn’t overtly fuelling the comparison, saying it sees Viewty as more focused on photography than music, with its five-megapixel camera.

I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone here who uses the term “iPhone killer” – while we’re firm believers in the awesomeness of our own phone we also have a good deal of respect for the iPhone. But we’ve taken a different tack and decided to concentrate on using our screen for our camera – once you’ve directly edited, cropped or enhanced photos and video with a touchscreen interface you wonder how you ever coped with fiddling with buttons and menu options on your old camera or phone. That’s where the technology truly transforms – so while the Viewty has a fully capable (and pretty good) MP3 functionality we’ve not made it the centrepiece attraction like the iPhone has. So please, no more talk of “iPhone killer” – it’s a great phone but a different phone too.

By the way – the Viewty has been nominated by Pocket Lint for best mobile phone of 2007 – thanks for that, guys! Awards are expected to be announced some time next month.

There’s lot of tech buzz today about the new Microsoft Zunes. They might not yet be available in Europe (any word on that?) but the new top-end 80GB model with its enormous screen is certainly worth a look. However the 4 and 8 GB mini models (pictured) don’t seem to have much going for them; it looks far too similar to the old iPod Nano, which has just been updated to a more compact model.

Perhaps that’s where Microsoft are going wrong. Everything they do seems to falter a little in comparison with the iPod. Even their top end model looks a bit too much like it’s trying to mimic the fifth-generation iPod, just a couple of weeks after Apple launch the scrollwheel-less iPod Touch and further enter the touchscreen paradigm (which we’ll be seeing a lot of over the next couple of years, trust us).

Unlike their enormously successful Xbox range, which took on the competition and innovated enough to beat them, with the Zune Microsoft are at the moment content with meekly following. Digital music products are as much about style as performance (as the iPod has proved) and Microsoft need to buck up a little in how they style their products in order to set themselves

Under the hood, there are some nice features on the new Zunes (wireless synchronisation is very handy given the ubiquity of Wi-Fi) and some useless ones (FM radio - who is going to listen to someone else’s songs when you have your own?). The most interesting feature is the addition of social networking features on Zune Marketplace, allowing you to show what you’re listening on a profile and find out what your friends are. Existing successful sites like Last.fm and iLike have shown what a great idea it is, but getting these to work is always a chicken-and-egg problem: You need a good-sized userbase for it to be useful, but people will only join it if it is useful. Can Microsoft get the core user base they need in what is already a crowded market? Let us know what you think.

Microsoft has released a special edition Halo 3 Xbox 360 to go along with the spectacularly well selling Halo 3. Will anyone actually buy one I wonder? The original Xbox 360 visually, is a well designed games machine and in my opinion looks a lot better than the Playstation 3 which is rather clunky and tends to look a lot better in pictures than it does sitting under your TV.

The Spartan green and gold Halo 3 special edition 360 is fine and actually looks pretty good. The futuristic detailing sits well with the Master Chief’s military green although I’m less convinced about the controller, which lacks any of the intricate charm of the main console. Will it sit well with your TV? I’m not so sure. The gold (or is it orange?) is unlikely to compliment much in its vicinity and in reality the original styling is still superior. Will owning one make you ‘believe’? Probably not, for that you’ll want the hand painted custom version.

Unfortunately - and this is probably the key factor - spec wise the Halo 3 special edition is only the 20GB Premium version, doesn’t come with the game itself, and at £280 you can get the black Elite for a mere £20 more. Surely even the most hardcore Halo fan will do the math here?

So will people buy it? Probably not, but it certainly beats the all the pink consoles that have been released over the years.

It’s tempting to be cynical about brands setting up shop in virtual worlds as they often miss the point of places like Second Life. It’s interesting to see however if brands such as Armani can use virtual worlds in an inventive and understanding way to get their message across without seeming opportunistic. After all they tend to have huge budgets which means the potential the produce a lot of excellent work.

For me the key to the success of Armani’s venture into the virtual world is the clothes themselves. If Armani wants to get people to buy clothes in the real world then the virtual items must also match the quality of their real counterparts. You’re not likely to head to the online Armani shop if what you see in the virtual world doesn’t at least compete with the best virtual clothing available.

Unfortunately Armani seems to have forgotten this. Initially finding any clothes in the store is a bit of a task - the layout is exactly the same as the flagship Milan store and it doesn’t translate well into the virtual world. When you do come across the clothes their design is far from inspiring. The limited items for sale are in a separate area of the shop and initial reaction to them has been poor. With plain, boring and badly designed clothes the shop has lead people to comment that more attention has been paid to the taps in the bathroom than the clothes themselves.

This is a shame. You feel if Armani had spent more time understanding the differences between the virtual and real worlds and not just attempted to plonk a real store in Second Life this would have been a lot more successful.