The HP DreamScreen, a companion to the PC, connects to a wireless or wired network to bring photos, music and video into any area of the home. HP says it brings social media and web information into the home in consumable, bite-sized pieces. It represent a new category of wireless connected screens, says Venture Beat.
The HP DreamScreen ($250 at Amazon), features an 800 by 400 widescreen display, an ARM processor, and 802.11b/g WiFi to access real-time information. By selecting the Facebook icon, for example, users can stay up to date with their social networks while away from their computers. Friends’ status updates, photos and upcoming events can all be viewed in real time.
“What we’re really trying to do is bring a simple, user-intuitive device that’s always on, always connected to the Internet, to bring Web applications that don’t require PCs,” said Ameer Karim, director of worldwide marketing with HP.
It comes with a 10″ or 13″ display and 2 gigabytes of built-in memory for storing photos, music and home movies. Digital content can also be loaded and played using a USB drive or flash memory cards. Photos and music can be streamed wirelessly from your computer or moved to the HP DreamScreen by a simple “drag and drop” motion from a networked PC with included software. It won’t stream websites like Hulu or YouTube.
The DreamScreens aren’t full touch-screen web tablets — they don’t come with a Web browser. It is a consumption-only implementation; you can’t update your own Facebook status or upload photos.
Instead, the DreamScreens come with an embedded version of Linux that runs pre-canned HP applications. HP worked with Internet companies and content providers to display their content. The initial partners are Facebook, Pandora and the photo site Snapfish. It plays video in MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, and H.264 formats and audio in MP3, WMA, AAC, and WAV formats. HP offers a widget, called SmartRadio, for users to connect to more than 10,000 Internet radio stations.
In the future, HP expects to support TV viewing, access DVR content or pull video content from TV stations. A remote control and touch controls on the frame border select activities. It comes with a stand and can be wall mounted right out of the box.
The DreamScreen 100 (10.2-inch) will be available online immediately, and retails for $250. The larger 13-inch DreamScreen 130 will cost $300 when it becomes available later this fall.
It’s significantly cheaper than webtablet, but it can’t display webpages, RSS feeds or simple messaging notification. HP says it’s considering opening the DreamScreen software to developers, and may begin offering access to Twitter, YouTube, and other popular online destinations.
As a photo frame, HP’s DreamScreen is feature-packed. Worldwide shipments of all digital photo frames will reach 50 million units by 2013, from 25 million in 2009, researcher In-Stat predicts.
Imagine a Sports Bar for Ocean Observatories. Widgets on touchscreens could show navigation charts, thematic maps and twitter feeds with customized news, sports and weather.
Tablets, running Win7 or Android, and video projectors can make a situation room. The Archos 5 tablet ($329) runs Android while the Archos 9 tablet runs Windows 7 with multi-touch. Realtime.
Related Dailywireless articles include; Ocean Observatories: The Ultimate Splash Page and Ocean Observatory Gets Funded.
