Photokina 2008: Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card Gets Faster

Eye-Fi, manufacturer of SD memory cards with an embedded Wi-Fi transmitter, announced today that the upload speed from camera to computer has doubled--and it's being done via a firmware update so current Eye-Fi owners can take advantage of the added speed. Wired's Gadget Lab notes that the wireless transfer improves from the current 350KB/s to 700KB/s. But wait, there's more...

There are three different Eye-Fi SD cards--all are 2 GB in size, and what differentiates them is the add-on services that they provide. Originally, the basic Eye-Fi Home enables you to transfer files from your camera to your PC, while the Eye-Fi Share added the ability to upload photos to Web sharing sites and the Eye-Fi Explore added geotagging support and a one-year Wayport hotspot subscription.

But starting October 5, new and current owners of the Home and Share cards can upgrade their services via an online Eye-Fi Manager. For example, an annual $15 subscription gets you either geotagging functionality or hotspot access (or choose both for $30). You can also add Web sharing for $10 annually, which now adds Apple's MobileMe service (for sending photos directly to a MobileMe Gallery for sharing) and AdoramaPix (for digital prints).