Though it's still only a consumer product at this point, one of the most interesting innovations to come down the pike in the last year has been, undoubtedly, the Eye-Fi Card. Basically an SD card with a miniature antenna embedded inside, the Eye-Fi Card lets you beam your images to a computer or the Web without wires, cords or cables. I got a chance to try one out recently, and while certain limitations—such as its SD Card format and its somewhat pokey wireless transfer speed—prevent it from being classified as a pro product, give it time. I think you'll soon be seeing this technology in products targeted to professionals.
What makes me say this is Eye-Fi's recent deal to license their technology to Lexar Media, a memory card company with long roots in pro photography. The partnership with Lexar should definitely expand the Eye-Fi technology to larger-sized CompactFlash (CF) cards and is bound to produce faster wireless transfer speeds and more flexibility.
In its current incarnation, the Eye-Fi Card is targeted mainly toward consumers with wireless networks in their homes who don't want to bother with card readers or cables to transfer their images. It currently does not support hotspots or roaming, so, for instance, you can't bring the card on location and wirelessly upload your pictures by piggybacking onto another Wi-Fi network. That, however, is bound to change.
The price of Eye-Fi-enabled cards also should come down with the Lexar deal. Though the benefits of being able to wirelessly transfer your photos with an Eye-Fi card are substantial (bye-bye card readers and clunky Wi-Fi antennas!), the cards aren't exactly cheap. The 2 gb Eye-Fi SD card currently retails for about $100. In contrast, you can get a regular, non-WiFi 2-gb SD card from Lexar, SanDisk or Kingston for as low as $18.
EASY DOES IT
I found the ease-of-use of the Eye-Fi card to be as simple as advertised. After connecting the card to my computer via a supplied USB reader, it took less than a minute for my MacBook to recognize it. I then loaded the software onto the computer and launched the Eye-Fi Manager. An on-screen instruction box popped up to let me configure the card to my home wireless network. Since I only wanted to transfer my photos to my computer—not upload them to the Web—I skipped the next part, which allows you to choose an online photo service including Flickr, Shutterfly and all the rest. I could easily see this part of the program being adapted with plug-ins to upload your shots directly to PhotoShelter, Digital Railroad and other online archiving/photo sales sites.
After choosing a folder destination for my images, I ejected the card, popped it into a point-and-shoot camera, and was ready to start shooting. Just to see if it was working, I fired off a couple of test shots and immediately saw my photos transferred over to my computer. I got a visual prompt on both the Eye-Fi manager page in my Web browser, which showed my images popping up one by one as thumbnails, and in the upper right hand corner of my screen where my test pictures shuffled by as small snapshots.
While shooting a couple of photos and having them upload quickly is one thing, I wondered how the Eye-Fi card would fare with a larger number of shots. To test it out, I hit the street and took more shots and then returned to my apartment to see how quickly they would upload. Though speed wasn't blazing (a lot of it depends on how fast your wireless router is), I was able to upload 16 shots from an 8-megapixel camera to my computer in just over two minutes, which is not too shabby.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Though the Eye-Fi Card, in its current incarnation, is targeted more to consumers than pros, keep an eye on this exciting wireless technology as it makes its way to Lexar's flash memory products. It could, eventually, let you kiss all those cords and card readers goodbye.
Eye-Fi Card
www.eye.fi
Pros: Extremely easy to use; wireless transfer speeds were better than expected.
Cons: Only currently offered in SD card format; no Web uploading to pro-oriented photo services such as PhotoShelter and Digital Railroad; does not support hotspots or roaming.
Price: $99
