[Editor's note: The eye-fi recently claimed the prize for Last Gadget Standing at CES 2008. There's a reason for that. Here we let gadget scribe, Mat Honan explain why.]
Clearly, there is nothing in Western culture more burdensome than connecting your camera or memory card to a computer every time you want to inflict the lousy pictures you take on your friends and family. Too hard! Eye Fi solves this horrifying shortcoming in our otherwise blissfully cable-free culture: The 2GB card works in any camera that takes SD media, and sports a wee internal WiFi antenna that automatically transfers photos from your camera.
Did we say solves? Well, sort of solves. You still have to run desktop software to connect the card with a WiFi network, even open ones. Thus you can’t simply gallivant about town wherever you please, wirelessly uploading photos on the go. The lack of automatic open network detection and connection make for a serious bummer on an otherwise great product.
Nonetheless, it’s a snap to upload photos once you return home or to a known network. Simply turn on the camera and Eye Fi does all the rest. In addition to uploading to your computer, the card has built-in support for 18 online photo services. Even better, these aren’t only the same old Web 2 stalwarts like Flickr, Facebook, Picassa, and Typepad, but also actual brick-and-mortar joints like Wal-Mart and Costco photo centers—meaning your Gramma Jean in Kentucky won’t be scared to use it if you buy her one for Valentine’s Day. What, you don’t get your Grandma something nice on Valentine’s Day? Shame on you. This would be a good start. —Mathew Honan __
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WIRED Automatically uploads photos to Web and computer via WiFi. Default setting marks photos as private on privacy-enabled services like Flickr and Vox. Surprisingly thrifty (although noticeable) power consumption. Includes USB card reader.
TIRED Auto-launching software and uploads to computer are annoying, if killable. Not compatible with several common browsers. No automatic connection to open WiFi networks means you still have to lug your laptop around like some sort of gruesome Neanderthal.
$100, eye.fi
