It was Christmas day when I told my cousin that I wanted to create a camera that would automatically upload pictures to my computer through a wi-fi connection. It seemed like a reasonable idea but I admittedly had no idea how to proceed. It turns out that this idea was already well under development and a product called “Eye-Fi” is now available on the market.
The really brilliant thing is that this company did not develop the technology around a camera, but instead they developed the technology around a SD card! Since most modern cameras already use SD cards to store pictures, it makes perfect sense to create an SD card that has a wi-fi transmitter crammed inside. So all you have to do is insert the “Eye-Fi” card into your SDHC compatible camera and it will be able to upload your pictures and video via Wi-Fi in real time! Man, I wish I had thought of that.
This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. At the most basic, it means that you can take pictures around your house and they will automatically be transferred to your home computer. Think about hosting a party while taking pictures and having them displayed on your TV only seconds later. Awesome! But this technology extends beyond the home because while you are traveling or out for the day, your images can be uploaded at any Wi-Fi hotspot and automatically sent to your home computer or any web sharing site like Picasa. If you don’t happen to find a Wi-Fi hotspot during your travels, then your pictures will automatically be transferred to your computer once you return home to your own Wi-Fi connection. Of course, you can also have your videos automatically uploaded to YouTube (I hear it’s popular these days).
The features of this new product keep on coming with geotagging, and endless memory mode. The geotagging feature uses Wi-Fi Positioning Service (WPS) technology to tag your photos with location information so you will be able to keep track of where you were when you snapped that awesome pic. Desktop applications like iPhoto and websites like Flickr and Picasa also allow you to visually see this information on a map. The endless memory mode means that once your pictures or videos are uploaded to your desired location, they are removed from your camera which means lots of empty space for more pictures!
As of right now the Eye-Fi cards come with different features and at different price points. You can see a comparison of the different available cards here.
Google has partnered with Eye-Fi to offer 200 GB of online storage on Picasa and an Eye-Fi card for $50. The 200 GB of online storage lasts for one year and you can decide to renew or cancel the service at the end of the year. This seems like a great deal to me considering the 4GB Eye-Fi Home video card is valued at $69.99 (USD).
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