Toshiba is expanding its TransferJet technology which lets you move files between devices without wires. For instance if you’ve got a TransferJet-enabled SD card and a USB dongle for your PC, you can:

  1. Snap a picture with your camera
  2. Place your camera next to your PC (so it’s touching the USB dongle)
  3. Watch as the photo is copied to your PC and opened up on the display

The same technology supports transfers of videos and other files and it can be baked into storage cards, USB dongles, or integrated directly into phones, tablets, laptops or other devices.

transferjet

Toshiba’s actually been part of a consortium including Sony and Olympus that’s been working on TransferJet for a while. What’s new at the Consumer Electronics Show is that Toshiba is introducing the first TransferJet adapter that works with iPhones and iPads, as well as second-generation micro USB adapters for Android phones and tablets.

But I hadn’t actually seen TransferJet in action before, and I was pretty impressed with the demo. With theoretical top transfer speeds of 560 Mbps, you can move photos or videos much more quickly with TransferJet than with Bluetooth or even some USB cables.

In practice, you’ll probably see slower speeds, but a Toshiba representative demonstrated the technology by shooting a short video with a smartphone camera, tapping it against a laptop with a USB dongle, and the video started playing on the PC almost immediately after transferring at about 189 Mbps.

For now you need a TransferJet-enabled SD card and/or USB or micro USB dongle to use the technology. But eventually TransferJet hardware could be built into mobile devices much the way NFC is today.

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4 replies on “Toshiba’s proximity-based TransferJet tech quickly moves files from your SD card to PC”

  1. This is actually a really neat technology. Not as sexy as some of the other things at CES but has a lot of potential. Would like to see this built into phones and wireless charging pads.

  3. Where is the intelligence? Do I need drivers or will this work right off on a Linux box with a USB dongle? Also do the cards come in micro-sd? And again do I need some intelligence on the device beyond the card itself for it to function?

    1. Almost certainly you would need drivers. I don’t think you would be able to access it as a traditional mass storage device because the connection between your PC and the storage device could be lost at any time. Plus, there are issues like security that would need to be addressed in software.

      That being said, this technology is nowhere near public release so you won’t have to worry about installing new drivers for some time 🙂

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