While browsing the Internet looking for an upgrade to the Gallery software I use to put my pictures on the ‘net I came across something called "Eye-Fi".  Apparently, you can now buy an SD card that can connect via WiFi and upload its pictures to various online services, including a number of photo gallery packages, and social networking sites like Facebook.  When you’re out shooting pictures, it behaves like a normal 2 Gb SD card.  When you return home to your WiFi network, it automatically connects to the network and starts transferring the pictures when you turn on the camera.  Assuming your camera uses SD cards, you don’t need to do anything other than pop it into your camera and start shooting.

In theory, you can probably use it with any open access point, too, but many WiFi hotspots require you to login with a browser before you can use the access point.  According to the Eye-Fi website, you can’t use it with those types of access points at this time.  It supports the various levels of security that exist for WiFi such as WEP, WPA and so on.

The Eye-Fi seems to cost about $100 from various online retailers, which is about four times what a 2 Gb SD card cost me about a week ago.  Seems quite reasonable to me.  I might have bought one when I bought my new Canon PowerShot SD850 IS last week if I’d seen it on the shelf.

This is a very cool sounding piece of kit.  Check out www.eye.fi to see for yourself.