Python-Based Server Lets Eye-Fi Users Skip Company's Software 128
gollito writes "Coder Jeff Tchang has developed software written with python that allows users to download pictures from the Eye-Fi card rather than having to use the eye-fi manager software. Running the script at intervals would allow for real time updates to an online gallery." At least one user has responded to the release of this software by getting it (after a bit of tweaking) to run on Ubuntu Linux, and another says it works with BSD. I hope the people at Eye-Fi see this as a good thing, rather than reason for a knee-jerk cease-and-desist letter; when I asked about Linux support at the most recent CES, I was given a good-natured shrug and a reasonable hand-wave: approximately, "We just don't have the developer time for that when most of our users are on other platforms."
Re:What is eye-fi and why would I care? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've known about the Eye-fi card for awhile. It strikes me as an interesting trinket but, as you said, not the most groundbreaking tech ever.
What interests me, especially with this recent development, is a potential use in something other than a camera. Cameras are not the only devices that use SD cards for storage, after all. With this script, though, it may be a simple way to hard-hack a wireless connection into some homebrew embedded device.
I'm still not clear if it can download data TO the card instead of just uploading to an external source... that would make it a lot more useful.
=Smidge=
feature (Score:5, Interesting)
I havent looked at it yet (I will) but what I'd like to see is the ability to *upload* files to the card. The application would be putting it in a digital picture frame (which would be in a different room than where the computers were) and be able to add photos to it without having to physically go get the SD card and apply sneakernet.
Re:What is eye-fi and why would I care? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure, the camera companies will build wi-fi in their cameras at some point. But do you want to buy a new $1000 camera body just to get one with a $25 wi-fi chipset built-in? That's how the camera companies will solve this problem.
Is the JPEG limitation in this a function of how the Eye-fi firmware works or something that can be fixed in the Python script?
Re:What is eye-fi and why would I care? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh please. It's a perfectly good idea, even though EyeFi has kind of bungled the implementation. The fact that hackers are hacking it should tell you something.
The use case they talk about in the advertising is a pretty common one. A bunch of people get together for a big social event, like a wedding, and take lots of pictures. Everybody promises to share their pictures, but what with absent-mindedness and the hassle of uploading big jpegs, it never happens. Wouldn't it be nice if everybody could see the pictures right after they're taken, and grab the ones they like? Makes the event more fun, too.
My use case is more serious. I write technical documentation for computer hardware, and I sometimes have to take photos of said hardware for the illustrators to work from. I suck as a photographer, so it'd be really nice if pictures just got automatically transferred to my tablet so I check each one right after it's taken. If you have to plug in the camera or transfer the SD card, it's too inconvenient to check until you've accumulated a bunch of photos.
The flaw (as of when I tried it over a year ago; perhaps it's improved since) in that use case is that the stupid EyeFi can't interface with networks that require any kind of authentication. That leaves out secured networks, and also the typical hotspot, where, even if it's free, they generally make you go to the providers' web site at least once before they let you on the web. (The WiFi network where I work is unsecured, but you have to login with via the provider's web site before you can use it.) So basically, the thing is only useful if you provide your own access point. What's needed is a way to network it directly to your computer.
Hmm, run a router on my tablet? Have to think about it.
Re:What is eye-fi and why would I care? (Score:3, Interesting)
And we'll all throw the perfectly good cameras we own in the trash bin in order to upgrade?
if you want new features that need hardware, yes.
with digicams, they are throw-away, so that's one case.
the other case is with slrs and here, the investment (long term) is lenses, not bodies. this isn't film and bodies are NOT long-term anymore. (leica is not quite thinking that, with their m8 body SO expensive and already uncompetitive since sensor and cpu tech advances but their body doesn't. not really.)
what I object to is having to trash lenses if the brand didn't think far enough ahead or introduced something short-term and fooled us into thinking it was not a mid-solution. case in point, contrast focus vs phase-detect (slr style) focus. with new movie-cam features in slrs, you need contrast focus and mirror flip-less focusing. older lenses didn't 'do this well' if at all. you have to REBUY your lenses to get this new feature.
hopefully this won't happen TOO often, but its more tolerable that we upgrade our bodies than our lenses.