Eyefi, Toshiba FlashAir Will Soon Play Nice With Each Other

Not all SD cards are created equal. While these pieces of plastic are more known for providing extra storage for digital cameras and laptops, some cards offer more. These are the so-called Wi-Fi SD cards, enabling wireless transfer from SD card to some other wirelessly connected device. And there are, in fact, two competing, ergo incompatible, brands: Eyefi and Toshiba's FlashAir. But thanks to a licensing deal between the two, cards from one company will soon be able to work with apps and services of the other, creating one big happy Wi-Fi SD card family.

It's really nice when competing products start to cooperate like these. Then again, with a niche market like wireless connected SD cards, it pays to consolidate your strengths and make friends. The licensing deal between Toshiba and Eyefi means that users of one product will no longer be constrained to using the brand's products or services.

For Toshiba, this means quite a lot of things. For one, users of its current FlashAir cards will already be able to use Eyefi's apps for Android, iOS, and Windows to transfer their photos and videos to Eyefi's cloud services.

But more importantly, future FlashAir cards will gain "Eyefi Connected" compatibility., which would give it access to features offered by cameras that support Eyefi's technology. These features include toggling the FlashAir's wireless connectivity on or off, or preventing the camera from shutting down in the middle of a wireless data transfer.

While current Toshiba FlashAir users will already be able to take advantage of Eyefi's apps, the new Eyefi Connected feature won't be coming until next financial year and only in a new line of FlashAir memory cards.