Why Fi? New Eye-Fi Cards Promise To Cut The Cordless

 
The Eye-Fi line of wireless camera memory cards have come great leaps and bounds since their debut (RAW image handling being the latest big hurdle), but there's always been one drawback: you needed a nearby Wi-Fi network to beam your images from the camera to a PC or other device.

Well, come the Consumer Electronics Show 2011, Eye-Fi promises to address that as well.  The new Eye-Fi "Direct Mode" will fling your pictures directly to the nearest handheld device, via a handy app and new technology on the card.

While Eye-Fi is mum about Direct Mode will actually work, and what with, two assumptions can be made:

1. The word "app" suggests that iDevices will be prominently supported, but that also doesn't preclude Android handsets/tablets getting in on the fun;
2. The new technology will likely be some implementation of card-based Wi-Fi or Bluetooth transmitter.  Since Eye-Fi is promising that the Direct Mode will be available as a free upgrade to X2 cards later in the year, our bet's on the former.

Read the full press release here.