It only makes sense. If you're going to take digital pictures, why not display them in a digital frame?

OK, so they're not as portable (most don't run on batteries) or as pocketable as a small photo album, but digital picture frames are a great way to show off your treasured snapshots.

This is a relatively new product category, with digital frames available from a wide variety of manufacturers, from names you know (like Kodak), to brands you've probably never heard of (like Digital Foci).

I took a look at Digital Foci's Image Moments 8 frame ($199), with an 8-inch screen, which is on the large end of the scale for most current digital frames.

It packs some of the best features you'll find in digital picture frames, like picture quality. The Image Moments 8 has an 800 x 600 pixel screen, which gives it a nice sharp image that's just about right for the frame size.

You'll see some competitive products that have fewer pixels (the tiny dots that create the image), and that can make a photo look blurry.

The Image Moments 8 also has a solid-state LED backlight, which makes for a brighter picture and more vivid colors than the flourescent bulbs used in many frames.

So how do you get photos from your camera to this frame? You can just remove the memory card from your camera and pop it in a slot tucked behind a door on back of the frame.

But the Image Moments 8 also has 450 megabytes of built-in memory, so you can keep the photos on your card and copy them to the frame without a computer. If you optimize your photos for the 800 x 600 pixel display (Digital Foci doesn't supply the software necessary for this, but most consumer level photo editors like Photoshop Elements can handle it), you can squeeze hundreds of snapshots into the available memory. The frame can also be used to display photos from a combo platter of its own internal memory and external cards.

That flexibility makes the IM8 ideal for loading up with your family's photo library and then sending it off to a tech-challenged grandparent. You can set the frame so that it immediately starts displaying from a pre-set playlist when it is turned on.

Another unexpected feature: The frame senses whether you have it oriented in "landscape" or "portrait" mode and rotates displayed photos accordingly.

I do have to give the IM8 a demerit for failing to have a place to plug in a USB flash drive; it only takes flash memory cards (although it does come with the necessary USB cable to provide a link to your computer).

Another nice feature of this frame is a slim, credit card-size remote control that lets you pause the display or switch to something else entirely from across the desk or across the room.

The Image Moments 8 is even capable of playing back audio and video, so you can create a musical slideshow or display action footage. I tried creating a couple of video clips but wasn't able to find just the right setting (although there was a sample video clip in memory when I received the unit for testing, and it looked fine),

And if you get tired of how the frame looks, you can pop on different mats (included) or even swarp the outer wooden frame for one of three available accessory frames ($20 each).

The Image Moments 8 is available for $199 from the Digital Foci Web site or locally at Arlington Camera and Cooter's Village Camera in Highland Park.

We're getting our first look at some features planned for Windows 7, Microsoft's scheduled replacement for Windows Vista.

In a video clip released this week, Microsoft shows how you'll literally be able to point-and-play using your fingers to dance across a piano keyboard on a flat touch screen.

Microsoft's fingertip interface is also shown letting a user "spin" an on-screen globe to pinpoint a desired location. Similarly, fingertips are shown moving and re-sizing photos as though they were on a real "desktop."

If you've seen Apple's iPhone in action, this multi-fingered manipulation may look familiar to you.

Microsoft says we can expect to see Windows 7 late next year.

You'll have fun checking out a Web site that plays tricks on your eyes.

Planet Perplex features a fascinating collection of online illusions, many of which manage to somehow create a sense of motion in an un-moving image.

One image, Warp, is sort of a blurry spiral with sharp, colored dots. The image pulses, swirls and shimmers with a hypnotic effect as you look at it.

Another example, Checker Shadow, shows how our eyes can be fooled into thinking that two squares on a black-and-white checkerboard are entirely different shades of gray — even though clicking on the image proves that they are precisely the same shade.

You'll find plenty of other visually stimulating and thought-provoking illustrations at Planet Perplex.

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E-mail askwalt@wfaa.com