Last week I mentioned that photo frame makers seem to have abandoned the network connection as a way of updating photos on their frames, choosing instead to go the media card route. At least one vendor is sticking with a network, however.

Photo frame vendor eStarling has announced a wireless digital photo frame that lets users update photos via RSS feeds from several photo Web sites (including Yahoo Flickr, Google Picassa and Webshots). Photos can be sent via e-mail or through a camera phone to the photo site, which then updates the RSS feed (the photo frame connects wirelessly to the Internet and updates the photos via the feed).

Users also can attach a memory card to the photo frame, and the device will transfer photos to the photo-sharing Web site, which then can be viewed by friends and family (or even other approved eStarling devices). For example, I could connect a memory card to my eStarling frame in Boston and push a button, and the photos on the card would be sent to the photo Web site, then downloaded via RSS to my mother's frame in South Carolina.

The $250 frame has a 7-inch color LCD screen, 802.11b/g connectivity with Wired Equivalent Privacy encryption support, 128MB of on-board memory (200 photos' worth), and support for MultiMedia Card, SecureDigital, Compact Flash and MemoryStick formats. The frame setup requires connecting to a Windows 2000 or XP machine, but eStarling says once the frame is configured it can operate without a PC.