Images: Adding sound to pictures

Italian start-up Zanetti Studio is marketing a printer that places magnetic sound strips on photos. Here, a Zanetti advertisement mock-up that has Hewlett-Packard's familiar look and feel simply inverts the "p" in the "hp" logo. The "hq speekysmart 4001," however, has nothing to do with the American PC maker. Zanetti Studio, marketer of the speekysmart printer, which promises to add verbal comments to photos, was asked by HP to remove the ad from public sites.

The next phase of the printer ad drops the HP-like logo, but it still resembles many of the company's recent print ads. Promising to "add sound to your digital pictures," the mock-up now brandishes a white Speeky logo.

Zanetti Studio is looking for a hardware-manufacturing partner to expand on its concept of adding audio tracks to photos, paper and other materials. This handheld mouse-like device reads a magnetic strip on the side of an 8.5-inch by 11-inch paper that can record 4 to 5 seconds of audio.

This artist's sketch of a futuristic cell phone shows how the handset could be equipped with a magnetic reader. That way, people would be able read magnetic strips without having to carry around another device in their pocket. Zanetti Studio is currently looking for a partner to mass-produce the hardware.