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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?"
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.
Could this be used to add WiFi to a cellphone with an SD slot? That would be cool...
Of course this product seems to provide convenience and has many applications. I just dont see it being that secure, once you take in account of how 'ignorant' the average person is about security. actually it sounds just fine, please start selling them asap, im bored.
s/©//g
My Wi-Fi is much better with memory than me; that's why I married her.
My immediate thought was relabling one of these so it appeared to be a non-WiFi card. Then, if one could handle the software/virus end of it to force the device to transmit stuff without the owner's knowledge, you would be able to observe and/or steal any and all images from a camera or hijack a cellphone that used it, etc.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
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).
It there is an easy way to trigger the camera into taking a picture, then maybe you could make a security camera system that had better resolution, auto-focus and etc, than the incredibly crappy cameras used in most systems.
It's a selective market because not everyone will be able to take advantage of the full benefit. If you are a corporate photographer, for example, it might be nice to be able to have your photos automatically uploaded to your network share as you snap photos at board meetings and whatnot. On the other hand, I don't think Wifi will do you much good on your African Safari trip.
All in all, this article is just another slashvertisement. Just another company probably trying to get the word out about their new product - hardly anything revolutionary. The market already exists, it is a niche market, and no, I will not be paying a hundred f**king dollars for it.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
My SD card has USB built-in:
- 2048-SanDisk_Ultra_II_SD_Plus_USB_2GB.aspx
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(1853)-SDSDPH
This solution seems alot simpiler than Wi-Fi: no SSID/WEP/WPA/etc stuff to configure.
Funny, people are usually more impressed by my SD card than my new Nikon DSLR.
/. is irrelevant.
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.
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
I think it is a great idea to be able to wirelessly transfer data from devices such as cameras. But I think it's the wrong approach to equip the memeory cards they use with wifi. The devices themselves should have wifi capabilities, and I do see this coming in the near future. Equipping memory cards with wifi is a nice way of making existing devices wifi capable but it's not something which will be usefull in the future as more devices become wifi enabled.
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I used a beta version of the product and really enjoyed it. I thought it was at its best in a "digital party" social scene. It's a lot of fun snapping pictures at a party and having them immediately uploaded where they can be displayed on a big screen and shared with everyone.
The version I tested could be configured (using a computer app while the SD is mounted) to automatically upload to Flickr, Phanfare or a long list of other photo sharing sites. I believe they also had a version that would upload to your PC but I wasn't testing that.
Setup for the card was done using a PC. The camera is oblivious to the WiFi capabilities. On the plus side the card can be configured to connect to any of the networks that your computer knows about. On the negative side, I think you need the computer to add new networks.
I can't wait until they make an eggbeater with a built in webcam. Or a BlueTooth-enabled flashlight.
This reminds me of the marketing guy talking to Dilbert: "It has to have a 47'' screen and still fit in a purse or wallet. It has to act as a communications satellite as well as an air freshener. It must cure deadly diseases and whiten your teeth while you sleep! AND IT HAS TO BE CAPABLE OF TIME TRAVEL! AND HAVE A TELEPATHIC USER INTERFACE!"
In hell, you will find a mountain of broken, feces-covered typewriters and a stack of copies of the First Folio.
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.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
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.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
God, if they can do this in an SD card, why not a compact flash? Is it just that there's a much bigger market for SD cards?
I have a Nikon D70 and this sure would be nice....
My Nikon S6 has done this for this last year... SD & WiFi & 3" LCD - I can even control it from the computer.
What you posted a link to was an SDIO WiFi card. Such cards are commonly used in PDAs and in this case printers to give them Wifi capabilities. They require SDIO support in the device and drivers. TFA is about a 2Gb memory card, which has onboard Wifi and the software to use it to transparently upload files to a server. To the device it appears as a 2Gb memory card, not as an SDIO Wifi card.
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.
I would pay for it.
Hell, I would pay 100 just for adding the Wi-Fi functionality to my camera.
One of the things I'm really lazy about is connecting the camera to the USB port on my PC. I don't like taking the CF card out because 1) it's basically the same amount of work, and 2) I've heard that sometimes the pins in the camera can be bent during insertion.
In essence it's the same reason why I like to have bluetooth on my cellphone for synchronization: you're just sitting there and synchronize without having to reach for the device or the cables (ok, so maybe you would have to turn on the camera).
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?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Wear and tear?
I've never heard anybody complain of wear and tear on a USB cable before. I guess there is a first time for everything.
As for wear and tear on the shutter release button, I would think that your shutter itself would fail before the release button, but what do I know?
Anyhow, if this card is ever released, I will buy one for sure. If anything, to solve the "I don't feel like waiting for 2 GB of images to download over USB" problem. With this, there would be no waiting. The images would already just be there.
For pros, this would be a godsend. Totally eliminates the issue of taking 150 photos to a corrupt card.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
This is great. Now I don't need to confiscate cameras from people for taking unwanted pictures; I just hack their camera's wifi and erase the pictures without their knowledge! Bonus, I get to download whatever personal pictures they have stored on the camera. This will be great for surreptitiously profiling people by the contents of their cameras at airports, too! ("No guns, no toy guns, no pictures of guns or toy guns permitted beyond this point.")
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Mod up. That is the real benefit to this device. Now you can surrender your memory card without losing any of your photos.
Hands in my pocket