2. Wi-Fi Weaknesses

But what about EyeFi’s limitations? First of all, it requires a Wi-Fi network. If the real world is anything like Las Vegas, I can tell you that Wi-Fi isn’t nearly as ubiquitous as I hoped it to be. The only place you can really count on a Wi-Fi network is in your home, not at the party, in the park, or even at work. But, for sake of argument, let’s say you’ve got Wi-Fi anywhere you’d ever use your camera. Well, so what? Wi-Fi is really slow. It hasn’t got enough oomph to transfer photos quickly—especially if you work with a DSLR or any camera equipped with lots of megapixels to create large file sizes. Transferring a day’s worth of photos could take…potentially hours.

Enter NaBee. In September, Samsung brought this wireless standard to the fore for the first time in an announcement that implied a new technology would show up soon in Samsung cameras. The company had partnered with Alereon, a fables chip-maker, to create a flavor of Wireless USB designed specifically for moving photos from cameras to computers. mentioned in my CES Preview article that I’m sick to death of talking about Wireless USB—but there was a caveat—no new products had been announced but the same old routers.