Designers at BorgCo have produced a prototype of a new generation of flash memory storage cards.
These devices are physically identical to standard cards, but have a Bluetooth module incorporated. They draw power from the host device to charge the internal Li-ion battery.
On first installation, the user presses the pairing button on the card and bonds it with a Bluetooth-enabled PC, tablet or smartphone.
Subsequently, the paired device can read/write/delete data on the card via the FTP connection. While FTP is active, the card appears "Not Ready" to the host equipment.
Thus, wireless uploading of data from a basic digital camera is possible.
The memory capacity of the card isn't massive, as it's so easy to upload the stored data and then free up space. An app on a smartphone could be configured to do this automatically at intervals, or whenever the device becomes visible, and then upload the images to a web server.
CF has been selected as allowing the most real estate for the circuitry required.-- 8th of 7, May 03 2012 Eye-Fi SD Cards http://www.eye.fi/ [ytk, May 03 2012] Baked (see link). This has been available for years, in SD form- factor no less. It uses Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth, but otherwise is pretty much what you're describing here.-- ytk, May 03 2012 Even GPS has been available in an SD format (albeit with an external antenna) for quite some time-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, May 03 2012 WiFi ... pah.
That's why it says Bluetooth in the title.-- 8th of 7, May 03 2012 This idea makes a nice prior art workaround.
I once thought, yo those USB drives should be like touch lamps, you touch it, it tells the OS to unmount the drive that very microsecond so you can just pull it. thats because I noticed that if you just yank the the thing weird stuff happens.
when I looked, I noticed Apple had patented the idea n it got some popular press, yet I haven't actually noticed they are available.
with the radio version, if the person does a sudden reboot, or the OS notices the system is unstable, it can prepare the drive, that way theres an absence of mess from a rush away effect.
Its different enough from the apple thing to be fresh.-- beanangel, May 03 2012 I always just yank my flashdrive out. It has never caused a problem.-- DIYMatt, May 03 2012 Bluetooth isn't really the appropriate technology for this, though. It's orders of magnitude slower than Wi-Fi, and is less flexible in terms of infrastructure, with a considerably shorter range. Where Bluetooth is really useful is in connecting a "dumb" device like a headset to a single smart device like a phone, utilizing a low-bandwidth link to send streamed data over a personal area network.
What advantage does Bluetooth offer over Wi-Fi for something like this?-- ytk, May 03 2012 Low cost; low power drain, low complexity; simple setup; small physical footprint.-- 8th of 7, May 03 2012 And the same problem as all other flash-memory cards: limited number of write cycles (and shrinking as the storage magnitude increases).
And the same security problems as any other device accessed via the EM spectrum.
Not interested, twice.-- Vernon, May 04 2012 SSD HDDs have a lifespan of about 6 months, I have found. Very annoying when you rely on them for a living.
Not sure why I'd want a slower, dodgier storage device than the doggy USB sticks I already hate.-- UnaBubba, May 04 2012 random, halfbakery