Digital Camera Memory Card With Wi-Fi

thefickler writes "A Secure Digital memory card with built-in Wi-Fi networking will allow digital cameras to upload images automatically to home computers and photo-sharing web sites. This product of California-based company Eye-Fi is currently in beta and should be launched later this year. Would you pay $100 for a 2-GB memory card in order to save the hassle of plugging in a USB cable?"

Comments

$1.84 per month

[Harmonious Botch]

Assuming that my memory card or my current wi-fi or some other component will be obsolete in 5 years...$100 dollars amortized over 5 years at 4% comes to $1.84 per month. Heck, I tip more than that to have two burgers delivered to the table rather than get up and walk to over to the counter and get them myself.
This is a no-brainer.

Re:$1.84 per month

[Linagee]

Do you really think technology lasts 5 years?

Re:$1.84 per month

[fyngyrz]

Yes, but what value does that $1.84/month give you over a regular 2GB SD card?

It could save wear and tear on the USB connection. My Olympus E20, a 5 MP DSLR, has a tiny USB connection which I sometimes use several times a day. Plug it in, grab the photos, eject the volume, unplug it, go back to what I was doing, do it again. Photography is a hobby; if I were serious about it, I'd use it more.

The E20 is a few years old, and the jack is definitely getting loose, though it hasn't actually had a connection problem yet. It'd be nice to not have to worry about it, and use the jack for less common situations. Same thing goes for card readers. Pull the card, insert the card in the reader, read it, pull the card, insert in camera... wear. Wear and more wear. Plus a remote, but real, risk of ESD problems (High plains Montana.. dry as death during the winter, and even some parts of the summer.)

My E20 has an infrared remote to fire the shutter. When I got it, I thought... I'll never use it. Ooops. I use it all the time. Not only does it allow rock-steady shots off a tripod (no physical contact), it saves wear on the shutter button, allows me the freedom to work more directly with the subject...

I suspect that a wifi enabled camera might be more convenient than we might think. Wifi has a decent range, too, it isn't choked into 30 feet like bluetooth is. So I'd buy this, and I wouldn't doubt for a minute that it would improve my camera experience. Wouldn't it be cool if the camera could just be set to send the images back to your laptop on a continuous basis? By the time you got to it, it'd already have your stuff ready to look at. While you shoot, it uploads. Yummy! Now that I'd definitely pay for. And it's almost time for a new camera anyway. 5 megapixels isn't exactly top of the line anymore...

$100 for 2GB --- absolutely

[inflex]

Biggest hate I have with cameras is having to move that card in/out, not to mention stupid events like racing off with the camera without remembering to put the card back into the cam *sigh*, or forgetting to umount the 'drive' etc etc, so yes, a tiny $100 for 2GB is well and truly worth the gains (for me).

Wifi is highly overrated... I'd rather bt+3g

[dfn_deux]

I'd much prefer an SD card with a bluetooth adaptor built in that could leverage the 3G wireless internet connection which is the true core of the PAN (Personal Area Network) that is always touted as being the logical goal of the bluetooth architecture. I mean really, BT chipsets are far more optimized for power than wifi and comes with far fewer limitation as to the connections it can make. Let the devices choose the path of least resistance to the internet, be it tunnel over a phone, pda, laptop, or whatever the marketplace has in store next.

honestly I think that the working group that came up with BT designed it for exactly this sort of purpose. It'd be stupid not to also use this type of integration between PAN components to further enhance the meta data richness of the content created by the camera. GPS, PDA, camera, 3gphone, and headset sounds like a pretty good recipe for being your own gargoyle. I for one wouldn't mind being able to publish video, photo, sound, and location data at a moment's notice directly to the internet. If we are bound to live in surveillance state I'd sure like to get a good grip on the technology before Big Brother does.

Re:Not the first

[The Clockwork Troll]

It is not just a Wi-Fi SD card. It is an SD memory card that transparently and asynchronously uploads all files stored on it to a designated IP endpoint.

About the market

[Yvanhoe]

French cops have a new tactic in protests : when they label someone "troublemaker" they ask him to delete his camera's memory. Wifi could be a way to get around that.

Worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of plugging in your camera every time you want to get the photos off, you get up an plug it into the charger because the WiFi SD card is sucking down the power faster.

Either way you're not gaining anything.

HUGE value to pros

[Slashdot Parent]

I can't see this card being much more than a novelty to your casual point and shooter, but the value of something like this to a pro is enormous.

Let's say you're a pro shooting on assignment (event, wedding, on-location, whatever). Do you know how much money it would cost you if your memory card gets corrupted, lost, damaged, etc.? If it happened at a wedding, your career might be over (most wedding photogs shoot on many small memory cards in case one card gets corrupted. It happens more than you think).

But with a wi-fi SD card, you have instant backup. This is huge! Many pros have an on-site workflow that includes backing up the card the instant it's full. With a wi-fi setup, you can be backed up instantly to a notebook with RAID-1 or something. This insurance policy is worth way more than $100.

I'd even argue for you this would be a great investment. You say that you are prone to losing SD cards. Imagine if the card never left your camera. How many $15-$34 SD cards do you need to lose before you wish you had just bought the wi-fi card?