X-bit labs

Eye-Fi Unveils World’s First Wireless Secure Digital Memory Card.

Category: Storage

by Anton Shilov

[ 10/30/2007 | 11:44 PM ]

Eye-Fi, a little known technology company, announced its Eye-Fi Card, the industry’s first Secure Digital memory card with built-in wireless local area network (WLAN) controller that will help to transfer information to and from the memory card without wires. But while everything sounds easy, it may not be really fast.

“Digital cameras have made it extremely easy to take pictures, but the rest of the process is a hassle. The Eye-Fi Card removes the barriers and lets users get to the fun part of sharing and printing their memories. We’re putting the magic back into photography,” said Jef Holove, chief executive officer of Eye-Fi.

The first version of the Eye-Fi Card is a 2GB SD card that features 802.11b/g Wi-Fi controller with support for such security features as WEP 40/104/128, WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK. It should be noted that 54Mb/s (6.75MB/s) maximum bandwidth provided by 802.11g networks (802.11b only supports 11Mb/s [1.375MB/s] speed) is considerably lower than maximum read speed provided by contemporary SD memory cards, 133x or 20MB/s, which means that actual transfer rate between a PC/access point and Eye-Fi Card will be relatively slow.

Using a special software suite, users can upload their photos directly to their online photo albums.

The 2GB wireless SD memory card is available now at major online retailers including Amazon.com, Buy.com and Walmart.com for $99. It’s also available from the online stores of J&R, B&H Photo Video, dotPhoto and Photojojo.