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Eye-Fi supported by Nikon D60 firmware: The Wi-Fi Secure Digital card offered by Eye-Fi can now be recognized by Nikon’s D60 SLR, a just-announced 10.2-megapixel camera due in March; pricing for the camera wasn’t released. The Eye-Fi integration solves a problem I heard widely discussed at Macworld Expo, where Eye-Fi won a Best of Show 2008 award: because cameras can’t detect the Eye-Fi, the makers of the Wi-Fi card say you should disable automatic power conservation on your camera to avoid the card—powered by the camera—shutting down while still uploading photos.
This makes logical sense, but it’s irritating. I suggested in a review and to the company that because they have a server component to the offering, that they offer an option to email, send SMS, or offer a pop-up message on a host computer when uploading is complete, so a consumer would then know to turn the camera off. At Macworld Expo, when I talked to employees at the booth, they nodded without responding. I said, these aren’t good ideas? They said, no, in fact, they’re hearing the same ideas all the time, and they’re trying to figure out how to work them in. That’s good news.
But the integration with camera firmware is, of course, even better, because it makes the Eye-Fi essentially an accessory for a camera, rather than an unrelated third-party add-on. Older cameras could have firmware upgrades, but I find even though that’s possible, most people who use cameras would never think of this, and thus camera makers would be unlikely to upgrade older cameras unless they sold well, and the maker could slipstream a branded offering into the retail channel that noted the camera was Eye-Fi ready.
Posted by Glennf at 9:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
After more than a year of providing hints at their capability, Eye-Fi has released their flagship product: a 2 GB Secure Digital flash card with built-in Wi-Fi for $100: The Eye-Fi Card connects over a Wi-Fi network using its own onboard processor to transfer images from the card to a computer or upload the photos to Eye-Fi’s servers for further distribution. The camera has to be powered on within range of a Wi-Fi network; there’s no other intervention needed.
The company has partnered with 17 major photo-sharing, photo-finishing, and social-networking services and sites to enable direct transfer to one or more of those services when pictures are uploaded, based on your choices.
The Eye-Fi is not a generic Wi-Fi adapter: that is, it doesn’t magically add Wi-Fi capabilities to a digital camera. Rather, it’s a separate computer that happens to live within an SD card and can access the same stored data that the digital camera can. I expect to review the unit in the next week or two.
In an interview with Jef Holove, Eye-Fi’s chief executive, he explained that Eye-Fi had honed in on a very simple offering, with the potential to become more complicated later as the market dictated. He describes Eye-Fi as “a wireless memory card that lets you upload your photos,” a concise summary.
The Eye-Fi’s intent is to allow zero-effort uploading of photographs taken on a digital camera. I haven’t seen anything close to this amount of simplicity, including in the consumer cameras that have Wi-Fi built-in from Nikon, Canon, and Kodak. Those cameras generally don’t allow full-resolution Internet transfers of photos, and lock you into specific upload services, such as Kodak Gallery (renamed for the third time in a handful of years). Eye-Fi wanted to provide full-resolution uploads, no preferred service, and eliminate the effort in initiating or managing the transfer.
An Eye-Fi needs to be set up before it’s used in a camera. The device comes with a small USB dock, and software for Windows and Mac OS X that can configure internal settings in the card. The software mostly exists to connect you with Eye-Fi’s Web site, where you create an account, enter Wi-Fi network settings (including passwords), and enter or sign up for any of the 17 services you may use or belong to. Various settings are then installed on the Eye-Fi and it’s ready to go.
Whenever you’re within range of any of the networks you’ve configured, the Eye-Fi transfers any pictures you’ve taken since the last transfer. The camera isn’t involved. Holove said that there are three modes that the card can work in for transfers: transfer to the host computer; transfer to Eye-Fi’s servers directly; or transfer to Eye-Fi’s servers and then download to the host computer.
The last option sounds a little confusing: why download photos again rather than transfer them over the local network? Holove explained that it would double the battery usage to transfer the images twice, so they opted to retrieve the images after upload rather than reduce the camera’s charge.
Holove said that they estimate the card consumes about 5 to 10 percent more battery than a camera would use otherwise; they found their beta testers hardly noticed the power consumption due to the increased capacity of modern batteries and more energy-efficient camera designs. The Wi-Fi component, an Atheros AR6001, uses very little energy while idle.
If you choose to upload photos, Eye-Fi’s servers automatically transfer the photos to the service you selected. You can register at all the services you regularly use, and then choose which single service gets the uploaded images when you’re between uploading sessions. If individual photos size or resolution exceeds the maximum allowed by a given service, Eye-Fi’s system resizes the image just for them. (I’d prefer Eye-Fi uploaded to one or more services at once, but that’s not in line with their approach, which is “keep it simple at this stage.”)
There’s no option to downsample photos on upload to reduce the upload time, however. Holove said that in this first iteration, they wanted to appeal to what they found was a common sentiment among photographers they’re aiming at: the desire to upload full-resolution images. Holove said “As storage for these [photo-sharing] companies becomes cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, it becomes more affordable for these companies to store higher res images.”
The Eye-Fi is shipping initially as a 2 GB SD card because higher capacities require the use of SDHC (SD High Capacity), which isn’t supported on many older and less expensive cameras. SDHC is required for 4 GB and higher memory cards, and Holove said that the firm “wanted to launch a product that would work with all the SD cameras out there.”
Initial partners are dotPhoto, Facebook, Flickr, Fotki, Kodak Gallery, Phanfare, Photobucket, Picasa Web Albums, Sharpcast and Gallery, Shutterfly, SmugMug, Snapfish, TypePad, VOX, Wal-Mart, and Webshots.
Posted by Glennf at 11:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Nikon puts new Coolpix S51c on T-Mobile HotSpot network: The $330 Wi-Fi-enabled camera, shipping later this month, comes with six months of free use on T-Mobile HotSpot’s U.S. network. The camera has an 8.1-megapixel sensor and 3x optical zoom. The six months begin from the first connect, which has to start before Aug. 31, 2008. These deals simply further emphasize how difficult it is to connect cameras to hotspots, as the cameras lack browsers.
None of Nikon’s information explains the down-sampling that will be involved with emailing photos from the camera; it’s unlikely that full-resolution images would be transmitted. Further, Nikon’s previous software releases required software to be installed to transfer images at full resolution over a local network. The S51c comes with Mac and Windows software, so that’s likely still the case.
No Wi-Fi camera has yet been released for the consumer market that simply allows file transfers at full resolution over any network reachable when connected via Wi-Fi, nor full-resolution image transmission. None that I’m aware of include secure file transfer, either, although Nikon says its associated picture service for this and other cameras uses some secure method, not defined.
Even the iPhone, with access to Wi-Fi, and with low-resolution photos, only emails or posts to Web galleries downsampled versions. You have to sync over USB to transfer the full resolution.
Posted by Glennf at 10:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Eye-Fi adapter for digital cameras is edging closer to release: Eye-Fi has developed a Secure Digital (SD) card with what will probably be 2 GB of storage and a Wi-Fi radio in it that work in almost any camera that supports SD. The likely sales price is $100, according to this News.com article. News.com and other publications published stories yesterday and today triggered by the announcement of a $5.5m investment in the firm from venture capital firms.
I have not yet seen an Eye-Fi card, but my expectation is that they have managed to hijack the process by which cameras can print to a USB printing, with the Eye-Fi simulating a printer for the purposes of transmitting an image. Or they may have a set of triggers or default behavior that causes the Wi-Fi radio to transmit images when stored in a special folder (supported by some cameras) or just on the card at all.
Eye-Fi requires configuration of their card through special software. And because the camera’s don’t require any direct support of the Eye-Fi device, you won’t be able initially to configure to any arbitrary network. It’s a perfect match for Devicescape, where an Eye-Fi user could maintain network profiles on Devicescape’s servers and obviate any configuration whatsoever.
Posted by Glennf at 2:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The folks at Eye-Fi will release their Secure Digital (SD) Card with Wi-Fi and 1 GB storage to beta this month: Engadget reports that the combo card will support a variety of cameras that are qualified by Eye-Fi. This makes it sound like the card will require separate configuration, and then, when inserted into a camera that can work with it,
Posted by Glennf at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
This is a better deal than, say, Kodak’s first Wi-Fi camera offering, which just facilitated T-Mobile connections: The CoolPix S7c is the only one of five new Nikon cameras that has Wi-Fi. The camera can also connect to other hotspots and home networks. It’s $350, has a 7.1-megapixel sensor (3072 by 2304 pixels), emulates up to ISO 1600, and sports a 3x optical zoom lens.
he details on Wi-Fi are scanty—there’s no information on whether it supports WPA, for instance—and it doesn’t appear to have a useful file-transfer feature like Secure FTP built in. Rather, you can email photographs to people from the camera. Woo! Please, folks, just built Secure FTP in, and perhaps something like PictureSync, which uses the APIs from many different photo services to allow direct uploads. You can only seemingly transfer images via Wi-Fi directly to a computer while on the same WLAN, with the computer having special Nikon software installed. No, no, no! Open it up, folks.
The T-Mobile deal is 12 months of free usage via the camera, with service needing to be activated by Sept. 30, 2007.
Posted by Glennf at 4:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A Canon PowerShot with built-in Wi-Fi will be launched in December in Japan: Canon showed off Wi-Fi controls without a specific product plan or timetable earlier this year. Since then, Kodak and Nikon have released Wi-Fi-equipped cameras that have distinct drawbacks and quirks in how they transfer files and use Wi-Fi networks.
Canon’s first entry will be the Canon PowerShot SD430 Digital Elph Wireless. Elsewhere, it’s called the Digital IXUS, according to Engadget. The notes for the camera state that you can only use wireless features with Windows XP SP2.
The camera includes a feature I’ve suggested to Kodak: auto-transfer as photos are taken. It can even multi-task and allow you to continue to shoot while photos are being transmitted. Windows software can control the camera remotely over Wi-Fi as well. No FTP or other support is mentioned or documented, which is a crying shame.
The camera uses 802.11b and supports WEP and WPA-PSK (TKIP or AES), but only supports WEP for computer-to-computer connections, but it will use AES with its wireless print adapter. It also has USB 2.0.
It’s a five megapixel sensor with about a 3x optical zoom. It supports SD cards up to 2 GB in size. It can create 640 by 480 pixel movies at 30 frames per second or smaller movies at 60 fps.
The camera will cost ¥50,000 or about US$435 in Japan. The UK launch will be in January at a cost of £399 or US$712, which seems like too big a spread. In the U.S., it will appear in January for US$499. [link via Engadget]
Posted by Glennf at 3:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack