USB Taking the Digital Photo Album to the Tree

Digital photo albums are all the rage, so it’s no surprise that someone finally put one in a Christmas ornament: the Santa’s Slide Show Ornament from firstSTREET displays up to 50 photos on a color 1.5-inch LCD screen housed in a red ornament ball. The ornament, which you can either mount on a Christmas tree or display on a small stand (which makes it look a bit like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey) connects to your computer via the included USB cord and comes with software to help you transfer your photos to the ornament’s memory system. The ornament can freeze on individual images, or display them all in a slideshow.

One thing that surprised us: the $34.95 asking price doesn’t get you any sort of rechargeable battery, or any battery at all: the ornament requires two AAA batteries, not included (oh, the Christmas Day woes!). For that price, we’d expect some sort of USB-powered charging system, and maybe some indication of how many pictures those AAA batteries are supposed to display.