Eye-Fi produces wireless memory cards for digital cameras that, in effect, turn any digital camera into a wireless one, whether it’s a point-and-shoot, SLR, or camcorder, just as long as the camera can accept the SD-card format. The cards have been very successful and have been praised ubiquitously in the media. They’ve also been admired by camera manufacturers. In fact, when I queried one camera manufacturer about why it wasn’t developing more Wi-Fi cameras, it told me that Eye-Fi does such a great job that there wasn't much need to develop such cameras.

One problem, though, has been that the Eye-Fi cards require a wireless hot spot, which for most people means using their wireless home network, if they have one. That, of course, limits most of your shooting opportunities to home or maybe outside in the yard.

To expand the capabilities on these wireless cards, Eye-Fi recently announced that it will include a new feature called Direct Mode, which lets you connect to smartphones or computer tablets. This means you can use the cellular networks available on those devices to transfer your images and video and greatly expand your shooting opportunities.