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Sometimes, it's the little ideas that are the best. Take, for instance, the idea of digital picture frames. These are the gadgets you see at Radio Shack or Sharper Image that rotate your digital photos within a tabletop LCD display -- a perfect gift for your techie geek friend, or even better, a way to impress older relatives with your 21st-century digital savvy. (I personally used this gift to great effect for my grandma's last birthday. Now she thinks I'm a genius. Which, of course, I am.)
Then there's the concept of the desktop weather station. Similarly,
these are digital devices that display on LCD screens. It's the updated
version of the wall-mounted thermometer, with barometric readings, or
humidity, etc.
So why not a device that incorporates both? Why not, indeed. The
Frontgate Digital Picture Frame w/Weather Station is a product whose
very name displays an admirable frankness and efficiency. The 7-inch
color LCD screen can be set up to display your family photos as an
endless-rotating slideshow. Flip modes, and you get real-time readings
on temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and even the current
weather forecast. It's also a clock, with an alarm and calendar.
The display unit comes with an indoor/outdoor remote sensor, so you can
monitor the weather conditions outside while you stay comfortably
inside. In fact, you can buy additional remote sensors, and toggle
between readings in various places. Frontgate's promotional materials
suggest the garage, basement, baby's room, or wine cellar. Clearly,
they are aiming for an upscale domestic market of which I am not a
constituent. Still, I could use this to keep tabs on Lab 14-B, the
specially refrigerated habitat where I'm raising my colony of mutant
arctic cyberhamsters. To each his own, I suppose.
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