[bonkers]

1) Correct, brand of memory car does not matter for compatibility purposes, although they may vary in performance - read/write speed - digital camera websites are usually a good source of info on this because that is one application where speed really matters.

1a) You may find that the device has a limitation on the capacity of memory card it can address - my phone for example wont address more than 4GB. You might Google the manufacturer's website and look up the specs for your camera to make sure it can make use of a 16GB card.

2) I don't believe so: neither the camera nor the hard drive would offer you any means for handling the data transfer. (How are you going to to tell them what files to offload and where to put them?) I suppose that capability might be built into the camera... again, check the manufacturers website.