Eye-Fi: First Wireless Memory Card for Digital Cameras

Fri Nov 2, 2007 12:47PM EDT

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Now here's a great idea. Take a normal-looking 2GB SD card. Add a wireless chip to it. Stick the whole thing into your camera, and before you know it you've got a wireless camera. Now add a dose of software smarts onto the SD card to manage the whole thing and what do you get? You get a quick wireless ticket straight from your camera to any one of 17 different social networks or photo-sharing sites including Facebook, blogging sites like TypePad, photo-sharing sites like Flickr and Snapfish, or your PC or Mac. If you've been lamenting how your photos never seem to make it out of the camera, lament no more. The price? $99.99 with 2GB of storage (about 1,000 photos).

I caught up with Jef Holove, CEO of Eye-Fi, shortly after this product was announced. He shed some additional light on how stuff works behind the scenes. The card has everything, including the software necessary to get you up and running. All you need to do is tell the card which service you want your photos sent to. It also archives the photos on your PC or Mac. And while you can belong to multiple services, you can't send your photos to more than one at a time. Currently the card supports JPEG files only, but transmits photos without any degradation in resolution. It will resize the photos if the online destination requires it.

Holove says, "Digital cameras made it extremely easy to take pictures, but the rest of the process is a hassle." Wireless, he says, will make things much easier. We'll have a review unit momentarily and report back, but this sounds like a winner.

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  • 6 Posted by gnehrli on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:10PM EDT Report Abuse

    Totally awsome! I'm a mom of toddlers and other critters! And with the holidays coming around, it will be a SNAP to upload them so friends and family can see!! oh wait... when does it come out? THANKS EYE-FI!!!

  • 7 Posted by bsrutherford on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:14PM EDT Report Abuse

    is this only for digital cameras? or, say, could you put this in something like a palm treo 700w?

  • 8 Posted by bonhamowls73 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:11PM EDT Report Abuse

    would this work in a treo 700w for wifi access along with storage for the phone?

  • 9 Posted by william_abraham2005 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:46PM EDT Report Abuse

    What? I had no idea such a device would be able to do such things. It's basically putting a 'Photo' Server in a chip? That sounds almost impossible to do. I guess I'll just have to see to believe.

  • 10 Posted by illg1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:23PM EDT Report Abuse

    I still wonder how it all works when you are so far away. You somehow need to be within some wireless network service distance, right? Who exactly pays for traffic?

  • 11 Posted by pressdr on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:18PM EDT Report Abuse

    does this wireless only work for that type of memory card? My camera uses compact flash cards.

  • 12 Posted by justinathomason on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:44PM EDT Report Abuse

    "Just got easier"? You mean just got less secure. How lazy are we that we can't just plug something in? Geeze, we'll pay for that one.

  • 13 Posted by jgross3691 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:34PM EDT Report Abuse

    WOW! This is an awesome Idea.I hope it spreads further into a long term part in our lives. Better resolution pics, that I wont have to take on my cell phone camera. I think this will play a big roll on cell phone technology, however good or bad. Hard to say, we have all become dependant on cell phone cameras. I myself have recently changed my cell to a PDA, which has no camera. But, is a feature that I miss having.

  • 14 Posted by william_abraham2005 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:46PM EDT Report Abuse

    Great news, there are way too many wires in my camera bag. Is this technology going to be available with compact flash cards (for DSLR's) as well?

  • 15 Posted by mmin97 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:24PM EDT Report Abuse

    next: wireless brains. thoughts posted instantly to the web for everyone to read

  • 16 Posted by justinathomason on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:44PM EDT Report Abuse

    So why not just make the devices wireless, then you dont have to mess with it.

  • 18 Posted by ekbarnes4 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:52PM EDT Report Abuse

    How close do you have to be to a computer that you want it sent to? could you be say 30 miles away?

  • 19 Posted by mmin97 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:24PM EDT Report Abuse

    wow. this is so awesome. im the worst with keeping up with various cords and i HATE the mess that they leave at my desk. this would be a super product for me! where can i get one? i wi----- was cheaper though-- but i suppose it would be worth it!

  • 20 Posted by donwscott on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:46PM EDT Report Abuse

    That sounds like it would be a nice gadget. Not real big on tech toys but this is one I can see myself getting.

  • 21 Posted by tigerbait78 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:09PM EDT Report Abuse

    Funny. I was using my digital camera using infared some 8 years ago transferring wirelessly to the printer. What ever happened to that?

  • 22 Posted by illg1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:23PM EDT Report Abuse

    Amazing....Will it be available for my Christmas present ???

  • 23 Posted by mmin97 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:24PM EDT Report Abuse

    I hope one day we could have a GPS embedded inside the SD card. Thus, you can have geo-tagged pictures ! Imagine that you take your pictures and find them directly on Google Maps or Google Earth !

  • 24 Posted by djwd100152 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:45PM EDT Report Abuse

    bluetooth is so slow with a high quality picture though! Ever tried to send an MP3 with bluetooth? takes like a minute. Imagine 250 high quality pictures moving via bluetooth at that rate!!!

  • 25 Posted by jeffjwatts on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:32PM EDT Report Abuse

    Why would you want your pics to go straight from the camera to the net? The majority of photos need to be resized and have their curves adjusted before they look their best.

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