Eye-Fi to get 'Smart Boost', inks deal with Ritz Camera

Eye-Fi has announced that its Wi-Fi SD cards will get a “Smart Boost” update on February 12th. With Smart Boost, your card will be able to tell whether or not your computer is on and in range of your camera and, if it is, photos will be offloaded from your camera to your computer over your home network and then your computer will handle the heavy lifting of uploading the photos to your online photo-sharing site.

If your computer isn’t on, your camera will upload your photos directly to the web-based Eye-Fi service, which will then shoot the photos to your favorite photo-sharing site AND shoot them back down to your computer when it’s turned back on. Rad, no?

Also, Eye-Fi is now in cahoots with Ritz Camera.

Our new relationship with Ritz Camera for the first time brings the Eye-Fi Card to “brick and mortar” retail stores as well as allowing Eye-Fi Card users the ability to automatically upload photos to the RitzPix Online Imaging Service. Ritz, whose store brands include, Ritz Camera Centers, Wolf’s Camera, Kit’s Camera and others has over 1000 camera centers across the United States. This new online and retail combination enables customers the ability to automatically upload their photos, order prints online and pick them up in an hour from most Ritz locations.

The last sentence is very intriguing. Imagine setting your parents camera up for them and saying, “Okay, just take a bunch of photos and then go to Ritz in an hour.” Nice.

New Eye-Fi “Smart Boost” upgrade and Ritz Camera news at PMA 08 [EyeFi Blog]