Ricoh acquires wireless memory card manufacturer Eyefi
By Gannon Burgett	 June 20, 2016
Kurt Bauschardt
Ricoh Innovations Corporation, often shortened to Ricoh, has announced its acquisition of wireless memory card company Eyefi.
According to an email sent out by Eyefi, the team behind the wireless memory cards will immediately start work at Ricoh, where it says it plans to continue "maintaining and increasing the quality, support, and service that you have come to know from [the Eyefi] team."
Eyefi got its start as a hardware company, creating memory cards with built-in wireless networks. Able to create on-location connections between the card and a mobile device, Eyefi cards made it easier than ever to get images straight off a camera and onto a computer for quicker sharing and effortless transfers.
More recently, as noted by PDN Pulse, Eyefi put its effort into creating a cloud platform, where the uploaded images could be safely stored and duplicated until later processed or archived. Furthermore, Eyefi partnered with both GoPro and Olympus to help kickstart its online cloud integration.
There are few details about whether or not Ricoh will keep Eyefi's hardware in development or merely utilize its cloud platform, but Eyefi has confirmed that all owners, both new and old, of Eyefi Mobi and Mobi Pro cards will continue to receive the exact same support going forward.
Considering Ricoh is behind Pentax DSLRs, as well as the recently updated Theta 360, it'll be interesting to see what it plans to do with Eyefi's technology. Wireless transfers from camera to computer have become more popular in recent years, and with the experience of Eyefi, it's not hard to imagine that future DSLRs or compact cameras from Ricoh will offer these capabilities.
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