That’s where Sony wants to comes in.

At CES 2008 today, Sony announced TransferJet, which they call a close proximity wireless transfer technology. This differs from normal bluetooth or wifi in that it’s designed to handle large files (such as photos or high def video). It will send data at speeds of 560Mbps as long as it’s within the “close proximity” field.

This could fundamentally revolutionize how we transfer data wirelessly, which – up until now, has been significantly slower than transfer via USB 2.0 (which has a rate of 480Mbps) or Firewire 400 (400Mbps), although not as fast as Firewire 800 (which is not commonly used anyways) or USB 3.0 (almost non-existent currently).

Even if TransferJet isn’t the “next big thing” – it will force other developers into playing catchup to create an even faster protocol, which is always a good thing.

Typically this king of control requires special software to get any kind of use out of it. Nikon offers software called Camera Control Pro for their SLR’s. Canon has their EOS Utility. I’m sure other DSLR manufacturers have software of their own, as well… but many people go outside their manufacturer software and use something third party. One popular choice is Bibble Pro. It’s even fun to say! You can also check out ToneUp S3. Unfortunately it doesn’t allow as much control or support for custom tone curves. A third alternative is Capture One from Phase One, which supports many Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Pentax, and Olympus cameras (and more) – and is both Mac and Windows compatible.

Whatever software you end up using, make sure it does what you want it to do. Controlling the camera and simply downloading pictures from the camera while tethered are two separate functions – so ensure your software choice handles them.

As far as connectivity goes, remember that when you plug in with a cable – the length of the cable will greatly impact your download speeds. You’re bypassing the flash card here, and you want the fastest possible connecting so you aren’t waiting for images to land on your computer. Make sure you’re plugging in directly to a USB 2.0 High Speed port, and not going through a hub or other device.

However you end up getting yourself connected, you’ll find that the procedure of tethering is really handy because you can take your laptop on location and get those images in full-screen seconds after shooting them. Unleash your cameras full power and tether yourself!

The Eye-Fi cards we discovered a little while ago, which are 2GB SD cards that add WiFi to any camera, are now shipping with CF card converters. That means digital SLR owners who want to add WiFi to their camera can now easily do so… yay!

Eye-Fi is neat because it acts as a memory card AND a WiFi accessory. It’s also relatively inexpensive, compared to the wireless transmitters you can get for (some) digital SLRs, although it likely won’t get near the range of some of the more dedicated wireless transmitters.

Eye-Fi will let you transfer pictures wirelessly to your computer or send them to Flickr, Smugmug, Shutterfly, Snapfish, Facebook, Photobucket, or many other photo sharing services.

The SD WiFi card itself is $99, and the CF converter is $30. You can purchase the two together for $129. Find out more at the Eye-Fi website.

Now you can convert any digital camera that uses SD into a Wi-Fi camera! The Eye-Fi SD card adds wireless capability to your camera, and also functions as a normal 2GB SD card. Though this isn’t likely approved by any major camera manufacturer, it was tested over at Gizmodo and, according to them, worked flawlessly.

After five minutes of setup, the device was ready to go – transferring images wirelessly from the camera to the computer. If something died (your router, or your camera was turned off) the camera would pick up where it left off once everything was fixed.

The Eye-Fi device costs about $100 USD.