Eye-Fi heads to beta this month

It looks like those jonesing for some WiFi action on their digital camera (without, you know, actually buying a new one) won't have to wait much longer, as the much-buzzed-about Eye-Fi SD WiFi card is set to go into beta testing later this month. The card doesn't require specialized drivers and will supposedly work with any camera that's been "qualified by Eye-Fi," letting you wirelessly transfer photos directly from your camera to your PC or to select websites. Exactly which cameras have "qualified" we're not sure, with the company only saying that they've tested "numerous camera brands and models" and that they're aiming for "broad camera interoperability." The card will also come with a Compact Flash (Type-II) adapter so you can use it with your precious D-SLRs. As of this writing, there's still no mention of the beta program on Eye-Fi's website, but the company says additional details and a sign-up procedure will be available in the coming days. It will also cost you, of course, though Eye-Fi's promising a full money-back guarantee. Let's just hope the beta testing doesn't take too long, cause we're guessing the available slots are gonna fill up pretty quickly.

[Thanks, Caleb]

[Scott @ Oct 4th 2006 7:07AM]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm....... I wonder if someone will come up with a hack, allowing, oh, I don't know, maybe transferring music files with this card..?

[Michael @ Oct 4th 2006 8:41AM]

Uhoh. Now 'tech-savvy' adults will be able to upload photos to MySpace, ImageShack, and *gasp* DeviantArt like all those teenage photographic geniuses do! LOOK OUT!

Seriously, though, why would you wanna do this? I can see the benefits of uploading to online sites or hard drives wirelessly, but...paying more for the card that supports it, or buying a camera specifically for this feature? I dunno. I'm okay with grabbing a USB patch cable, or taking the flash card out and pluggin' it in.

[Homer J @ Oct 4th 2006 8:42AM]

So does this mean that I can drop this in my Treo 650 combine it with a little shadowmite software goodness for some mobile WiFi, and still have enough room for a couple episodes of Family Guy while on the road?

[Tim @ Oct 4th 2006 11:19AM]

Now this would be really great

[Carlos Rivero @ Oct 4th 2006 9:24AM]

I would like to see one with GPS so it can do automatic geo-tagging

[Matt @ Oct 4th 2006 9:29AM]

As a professional photographer, I think this could be very useful around the studio and at events. I must change out my CF cards a dozen times a day. Put the card in, Take the card out, Repeat. Gets old fast. Canon's current transmitter system is over a grand so maybe this guy will lower the prices to everyday people level. My biggest concern is how fast it can transmit 17 meg raw files. Pros might have to wait for the 802.11n/whatever model.

[PEZ @ Oct 4th 2006 10:26AM]

I am hoping there will be more use then tuirning a camera into a WiFi station. FO-SHO.

I hope my F828 is on that list!

[badbob001 @ Oct 4th 2006 10:30AM]

I wonder if I can pop this into my non-wireless digital photo frame and enable it to see photos stored on my server.

[starpause @ Oct 4th 2006 12:11PM]

if someone writes linux drivers for sdio then the gp2x could finally live out it's wifi dreams this card. best part is, no protruding bits to snap off!

[Ed @ Oct 4th 2006 1:06PM]

Seems like most people's thoughts are "what about squeezing GPS on there?" Eye-fi posted a reply on my blog about how they're working on wi-fi positioning.

http://ed.hunsinger.org/2006-10-01/wi-fi-sd-card-in-my-camera/
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/09/location_sensing_applications.html

[Yuusou @ Oct 4th 2006 2:46PM]

Oh wow, I hope my 20D is "qualified."

[Mat @ Oct 4th 2006 4:11PM]

I like to put this on my treo 650 so i can listen to my mp3s and surf the web via wifi.

[lasse @ Oct 5th 2006 1:39AM]

I wonder if it ever reaches xD-cards.

[Adrian @ Apr 28th 2007 1:41PM]

Does ANYONE actually have one (in beta) - every attempt at contacting them results in a "we're in beta come back soon" and I've recieved nothing when signing up for the listings. Is this a big con job or can someone demostrate that they have actaully used one and it worked as it should ?

[Mike Neilson @ Feb 9th 2009 1:12PM]

While there aren't many mainstream uses for a product like this, it would be useful (with some additional software) for the niche group doing geo-tagging. Use this with a laptop (in your backpack or something) which is connected to GPS, and you could have each picture you take transmitted right to the laptop and tagged with the current lat/long data. There are other geo-tagging solutions out there right now, but they tend to require more human intervention. This could be pretty automatic.