Toshiba Plan Standardized WiFi SDHC Cards For Digicams

Toshiba are looking to bring the wireless camera storage fight to Eye-Fi's door, with the announcement that they're setting up the "Standard Promotion Forum for Memory Cards Embedding Wireless LAN".  A collaboration with Trek 2000, the SPFMCEWL group would promote a standardized WiFi-enabled SDHC card that would communicate with the camera with cross-manufacturer consistency, wirelessly transferring its 8GB of storage to remote servers or directly to other cameras.

As with the latest Eye-Fi cards, the Toshiba technology would support both JPEG and RAW images, and they reckon their more advanced individual control over which imags were transferred "minimizes power consumption compared with [the] current solution."  Best of all, the rather unwieldy name is only a temporary thing and likely to change – we'd like to proffer RAWsquirt as an alternative – as more companies (hopefully) jump on board.

[via PhotographyBLOG]

Press Release:

Toshiba and Trek Establish Forum to Promote SD Cards Embedding Wireless Communication Functions

Tokyo—Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO-6502) today announced the launch of an industry forum to promote a new SD card that integrates Wi-Fi wireless communication with data storage capabilities. The forum, the "Standard Promotion Forum for Memory Cards Embedding Wireless LAN"* has been founded by Toshiba and Singapore-based Trek 2000 International Ltd..

In recent years, as digital cameras have achieved huge rates of market penetration, the need for quick and easy way to share photographs has grown. The new card offers an innovative solution that brings new capabilities to the already very popular SDHC format.

The card is designed to bring Wi-Fi functionality to digital still cameras that have an SDHC slot. Once in a camera, a card can recognize and communicate with the same type of card in another camera (on a one-to-one basis), and users can exchange photographs quickly and easily. It also allows users to upload and download photographs to and from a server without any need for a cable connection or transfers of the memory card.

The new card is compliant with the SD memory card standard, supports IEEE 802.11b/g and has an 8-gigabyte capacity. It can transfer both JPEG and RAW images, the two most widely used digital formats.

Toshiba and Trek will invite the participation of digital camera manufacturers and other interested parties in promoting the card, and in exchanges of technical information toward establishing standard specifications and expanding the use of the card.

Toshiba is a market leader in the development and manufacture of NAND flash memory, which is indispensable for today's personal digital devices. The company seeks to enhance and expand its memory business by proposing new applications for NAND flash memories.

Features of SD card embedding wireless communication functions

1. The ability to send and receive image data among digital still cameras equipped with an SDHC slot and the card.

2. Upload and downloads of digital photographs between a digital still camera equipped with an SDHC slot and the card, and in a Wi-Fi environment, and a server.

3. User management of image transmission and reception minimizes power consumption compared with current solution.

Card key specifications

Wireless LAN Standard: IEEE 802.11 b/g

SD card capacity: 8-gigabytes

Applicable formats: JPEG, RAW

Outline of The Forum

Name: Standard Promotion Forum for Memory Cards Embedding Wireless LAN*

Co-Lead Companies: Toshiba Corporation and Trek 2000 International Ltd.

Established: June 29, 2010

* Standard Promotion Forum for Memory Cards Embedding Wireless LAN is a provisional name and may be subject to change.