I just ordered mine, it's a 2Gb SD card AND wifi in one!

http://www.eye.fi/

I didn't read the product description closely; does this push shots to the PC as they're taken or as the card becomes full, or does it dump them in a batch?

From what I understand they are sent as soon as they are taken.

There was an article about this in the San Jose (CA) Mercury News this morning. An interesting idea.

Briefly read available info. It appears that the card comes with necessary software for setting it up with your PC or network. Photos will be uploaded to specific device within the network when this card (I believe card has to be in camera with power on) is within range (via WiFi).

Cool idea Doubt it can be price competitive to conventional SD card of same density.

Nope, but being able to take a photo and have it show up on my PC right away is awesome. I take a lot of photos for Ebay so this will save me quite a bit of time.

Wouldn't the WiFi drain the battery all the faster?

I'm pretty happy with the old-fashioned SD card that folds into a USB port (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-...qid=1193770440 ), which also eliminates the need for a cable-- and can double as a thumb drive.

One of the points that was made in the SJ Merc article was that this device would be especially useful for people who do not have a computer at all. Apparently, one can use it to upload photos directly to an online photo site, such as Flickr or Picasa, bypassing a PC altogether. Being a complete computer doofus, I don't know how it would work, but that was the gist of the article.

That was what I read as well. I have visions of taking once of the accidental pictures of the ground or a wall, and having it immediately appear in Flickr.

I saw this thing pop up last night and did some reading.
My first reaction is that I am totally blown away by the formfactor... flash memory and a wifi chipset in an SD card...thats cool!

I agree with people who say its a tad limited in that it appears to be bound to a single AP and maybe a particular computer... but I suspect that will be short lived. It'd be trivial to have it connect to any open AP or for it to have a memory of like 10 APs...

Just when I was getting disapointed that wifi cameras were not going to take off... I'm keeping my eye on this thing!

As far as I can tell a computer is required to set it up.

I guess on some theoretical level you could use a iCafe/Library PC somewhere to set it up but frankly I can't see that being practical.

I know this is O/T but can anyone help me find

reasonably priced XD cards

Why do they seem so expensive comparatively

Thanks

xD cards are more expensive in part due to supply and demand. SD cards are very popular so the volume is much higher than xD cards. The higher the volume, the lower the unit price.

I'd try Costco for xD cards. Just don't expect the dirt-cheap prices you can get SD cards for. You can also try Boddit.com for deals (on all kinds of things actually).

So would this card work with an ad-hoc wireless network that one sets up themselves?

And I too am concerned about the amount of juice this would suck up vs. how many photos can be taken with regular solid state memory...

Interesting technology, but..

I don't see how it can go directly from my camera, out in the middle of the desert, to my Smugmug gallery. I'm pretty sure all it really does is detect that it's in range of your PC (via SSID, I guess), transfer the files to your PC, then upload them to a site. So you have to get back home before it does anything (I doubt you can reonfigure it to talk to the local Starbucks WLAN). Actually, I believe I read that it stops at eye-fi's server on the way - I'm not a fan of them having copies.

It saves the 10 seconds of pulling the card out of the camera and putting it in the reader, but the card reader is likely much faster in transferring to the PC. And it saves the 30 seconds I need to right-click/SendToSmugmug.

I also shoot everything RAW, so this is of no use to me. I typically post-process everything I shoot. And there's an old saying - a bad photographer takes 100 shots and shows you all of them, a good photographer takes 100 shots and shows you 5. I've posted an image I shot at Dead Horse Point here before. I didn't show you the 40 other angles/lighting/foregrounds/etc. I shot at that same location. I don't want everything in my public gallery. Yes, I could dump everything to a private gallery, but then I have to filter and transfer all of them to a public gallery. Seems like too much work, better done on my PC.

It sounds like my Mom would like it for casual snapshooting, but I can't see a pro/dedicated hobbyist using it.