Toshiba is moving into the Wi-Fi-enabled SDHC card business, it wants camera manufacturers to get on board with a standard for all devices.
Joining with Singapore-based flash company Trek2000, Toshiba has created the "Standard Promotion Forum for Memory Cards Embedding Wireless LAN." The goal is to bring widespread support for Toshiba's Wi-Fi SDHC card, which allows cameras to wirelessly transfer images to a server or another camera with the same type of card.
Toshiba has developed a card, but hasn't released it yet. The unnamed product stores 8 GB and can transfer JPEG or RAW images over 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi.
This won't be the first product to marry Wi-Fi and photo storage. Eye-Fi already sells a range of connected memory cards in both the SD and SDHC formats. In addition to connecting to a computer or other networked devices, Eye-Fi can upload photos and video to 25 Web sites including Picasa, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. Several Eye-Fi cards can also geotag photos and, for a yearly charge, upload through Wi-Fi hotspots around the United States.
So basically, Toshiba has a lot of work to do if it wants to rival Eye-Fi on features alone. However, DailyTech points out that Toshiba could offer lower prices by producing its own flash NAND. As for participation from camera makers, Eye-Fi compatibility varies by manufacturer -- there's a lot of support for Canon cameras, but not nearly as much for Fujifilm, for example -- so perhaps Toshiba can do a better job of getting widespread support.
I still think someone needs to figure out 3G or 4G network coverage for camera memory in addition to Wi-Fi. Otherwise, compact digital cameras will find themselves at a major disadvantage as cell phone camera quality improves.
