Macintosh, The Internet

Add Geotagging to Your Non-GPS Camera

March 5th 2009, 08:03am

Once in a while something comes along that is so cool that you can’t believe it.  When Martin Varsavsky blogged about an SD card that included wi-fi I was impressed, but when I read that it can also add geotags to your pictures using wi-fi skyhooks (as the iPhone does, when not using GPS) I had to check the date.  It’s not April yet. How do they get all this functionality onto such a small card?  (It can also upload to photosharing sites via hotspots.  Oh yes, and it has up to 4gb of memory.  Currently pre-ordering at $99.)  

There’s a rumour of an Apple iPhone service that will pass iPhoto your movements and sync those with your pictures to add geotags taken on cameras that don’t support them; iPhoto ’09 and its Places features makes whichever solution actually materialises first something of an essential upgrade for your kit.

  • http://lonelocust.com Lone Locust

    Thats quite interesting. Skyhook location, though (my wife has an iPod Touch) is really inaccurate at times. Often off by a quarter to two miles.

    There’s already software out there that can syncronize a GPS’ track log with photographs – provides that your clocks are reasonably synced up. Presumably, the iPhone would need to be recording a track log. Sounds like a dreaded battery drain. Still – cool idea.

  • http://lonelocust.com Gridman

    Thats quite interesting. Skyhook location, though (my wife has an iPod Touch) is really inaccurate at times. Often off by a quarter to two miles.

    There’s already software out there that can syncronize a GPS’ track log with photographs – provides that your clocks are reasonably synced up. Presumably, the iPhone would need to be recording a track log. Sounds like a dreaded battery drain. Still – cool idea.

  • http://www.littlestorping.co.uk Simon Wood

    Well I guess Skyhooking is good in cities; I take a lot of photographs in remote rural areas. But even some location data is better than none. Still, that would be one point for the iPhone solution. Another is that it’s likely to be cheaper (factor in also that eye-fi expect you to pay the additional Skyhook fees after the first year).

    I imagine there’s battery drain on your camera from the wi-fi so we’ll call that a draw. Especially as I’d be willing to switch the iPhone background log on or off in settings depending on whether I’d be taking photos (I do something like this with 3G when I’m going to be a long way from juice and my need for fast broadband is second to my need to keep the phone running).

    A point for the eye-fi is that it also gives you the cool (if non-essential) wireless upload of pics.

    Points against the iPhone solution: it’s just a rumour…

  • http://www.littlestorping.co.uk One-Ten

    Well I guess Skyhooking is good in cities; I take a lot of photographs in remote rural areas. But even some location data is better than none. Still, that would be one point for the iPhone solution. Another is that it’s likely to be cheaper (factor in also that eye-fi expect you to pay the additional Skyhook fees after the first year).

    I imagine there’s battery drain on your camera from the wi-fi so we’ll call that a draw. Especially as I’d be willing to switch the iPhone background log on or off in settings depending on whether I’d be taking photos (I do something like this with 3G when I’m going to be a long way from juice and my need for fast broadband is second to my need to keep the phone running).

    A point for the eye-fi is that it also gives you the cool (if non-essential) wireless upload of pics.

    Points against the iPhone solution: it’s just a rumour…

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