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MP3 Player in a Watch
Myriad writes "Casio has announced a new wristwatch that doubles as a MP3 player. Set to begin shipping in summer, it will initially be available in 16, 32, and 64MB versions. All versions use a built in USB port for transfer. Another new watch sports a built in 120x120 16-grayscale digital camera and LCD display. It uses an infrared port for communication, and can store 100 images. Click here for the rundown with picture from ZDNet, or here for all the specs from Casio."
No it has no linux support. Every new gizmo does not support linux.
XMP is a good mod player, and supports many mod formats.
Flashback Title scrolls through song titles and artists on the display, one character at a time. Title and name text must be input using your computer, and both letters and numbers can be used.
Remember the Internet-ring Dilbert invented that would let you surf the Net but had a one-character display? :)
Oh well, I'm going to probably get it anyway. The problem is though, what to do with my current Casio watch -- how can one manage without seeing a graph of air pressure for the last 24 hours? :)
PS: It looks like it's going to rain tonight :)
That watch cam is the bee's knees. I must have one. I don't use my Databank for its intended purpose since I got the Pilot, so what's the point of having 150 measly phone numbers (shaaa! how..80's!) that I can't sync with anything else. That's it...pr0n watch!!
Totally offtopic: How long until marketers pick up on 'leetspeak? You'll be begging for e-speak & i-thisnthat.
StarOffice is a pig, and its all we've got in the way of polished semi-professional apps that we can expect Mom to use. Blorch. Write your own..
Casio isn't advertising that their camera can be used for illegal purposes.
http://www.mambox.com/p300.htm
They said it was going to come out in January, but now they say there's been a "delay" and it'll be out in February.
Take camera-watches off for security check (use your cheesy Rolex instead), and when you get in, change (in the WC, but not ladies one!!).
My Casio Databank 150 died on me a few days ago. I had it for 4 years. I knew it ws dying when all the charactors started blinking every second. This went on for a few days. Then it wouldn't let me change functions. Then it says "OPEN!" in the status bar display thing, and finally quits all together. I think the computer inside it just died. Maybe it wasn't Y2K compatable.
Sorry, but Bose blows. (hey, that sounds pretty cool). Besides, it's made to drive headphones, I don't think it has a built in speaker. Even if it did, any speaker you could build into a watch would be of poor quality.
Uhh, why would saying this be illegal?
"Hmm, if I had a big enough gun I could rob a bank."
Nobody's going to come knocking on my door for saying that unless I live in some totalitarian state. There are no thought police. Let's keep it that way.
A $10 amp will sound like utter crap. If you're spending money for a good car stereo system, you don't want an awful sounding amp...a system is as strong as it's weakest component.
The Nokia 9000 Communicator has been around since 1996 and is a PDA + GSM Cellphone. It's not exactly tiny, as it's a keyboard-based handheld, but can Telnet just fine =). Nothing has even come close except for that new Qualcomm/Palmpilot phone. I'm still amazed that Nokia was that far ahead of the game. It's also surprising they haven't made a newer model in all these years. I mean, the same phone is still for sale "new in the box" at cell phone stores. Sure the price has gone down: started around $3000 in '96 and now it's down to about $800, but still. It's the same phone. Hehe, maybe because Nokia never had any competition? =)
Along the lines of integration, it would be real neat to see a cellphone+watch combo. I'm not talking about data capability (yeah right, telnet from a watch?) but for voice calls it'd be just like Dick Tracy =).
FYI: I just went down this road this afternoon.
If you don't feel like fooling around with a paperclip, pop the entire watch body out of the shell and gently loosen the metal clips from the plastic body. It should give enough room to slide out the old cell and let the new one slide in to replace it. Then you just fit the metal clips back over the plastic stubs on the body and it's good.
I used a tiny little flat head screwdriver for this. The smallest one on a Leatherman Wave may be too big unless you are VERY careful with it.
I can now download the sounds of Natalie Portman being petrified.....
The article states clearly that the battery is re-chargeable for the watches, thus there is nothing to whine about.
Score 2? This guy always posts drivel.
You underestimate the number of geeks that use Windows. Just because Linux geeks may be in the majority on /. doesn't mean that Windows geeks aren't out there.
Son, could you please distinquish two different things:
1. A gadget that lets you make photos (like cameras).
2. Illegal use in certain restricted areas where very same camers are not allowed too.
These things were sold ages in spy shops, and stuff there was much smaller and useful for these things.
Exactly! crisp, clear, lossFULL compressed music in the confines of your auto!
I would just have to toy with the compression choices to obtain optimum sound.
He did ditch it soon after, though. At least when he's wearing a suit. Watch and you'll notice.
Your very idea is already being worked on by an alliance of companies. The project name is "Bluetooth" and it's an open specification for devices to communicate wirelessly using short-range RF. Applications include things like being able to dial your ISP with your cell phone from a laptop without ever taking the cell phone out of your pocket. However, the project isn't just for computer stuff. The goal of the project is to make everything wireless, even simple things like the TV to VCR connection to advanced stuff like you mentioned.
For more info check out the official page at http://www.bluetooth.com/
So do it & quit whining. Everyone I know with an Empeg happily paid their $1000. I know I did!
Look, Mr. Ubergeek, if you're so cool, you don't need Casio's help with sync software.
Complain, complain, complain.... Are you naive enough to think they'd have Linux support out of the box? Or at all??
It's more entertaining than most of the drivel usually posted here, that's for sure.
If the watch was more visually appealing and could store.. say.. about a Gig of data.. Then I would go for it.
Walking and especially running would make a LOT of kinetic energy available to a piezoelectric generator in the soles of one's shoes. More than enough, for instance, to run a Rio-like MP3 player, or a watch such as this one.
That HumanBus idea that someone mentioned could tie into the shoe-generator concept very nicely IMHO.
Hello, USPTO...?
It should be valid in most places where you have not signed something that forbids doing that. Even so, if you managed to record someone's threats at you, I think the other party will be reasonable enough to leave you alone.
I see some very practical uses of such small (wearable) audio capable devices with highspeed uplink to networked systems. Some questions arise however:
:)
- Can it playback realtime mp3-streams over the USB port? I allways wanted to have a wearable icecast client!! Go anywhere where, plugin your watch to any networked workstation and listen to live radio shows or endless playlists of your favourite music without loops. (kill the sky radio effect!(*.nl)
- Could this be used as a \dev\dsp ? Handy when you play an in-office quake3 deathmatch on a machine without a soundcard but with a usb-port
- Is Casio gonna release stuff needed to make clients on other platforms like BeOS, Apple and Linux (in the near future once USB-support is finished)
- Could this USB interface be linked to other (third party?) external gadgets like wireless networking devices, PCMCIA stuff or external storage? (64 or even 128 MB is not enough everyone seems to agree)
Here's the thing.. ...you're going to play them from a wrist watch.. sure, it's got the capacity of storing them, but you're not going to have decent filters nor u'll have the kind of power to drive out any good sound..
mp3s are supposed to sound good
and now
my point is that u try so hard to implement something like this, but totally defeats the purpose of mp3s.. i've heard that they're going to do the same for cell phones. this is a total waste on battery life.. and you know those aluminum batteries cost so damn much..(i'm back on wrist watches) and u're going to waste them on mp3s? not that i'm not a supporter of mp3s, but i think that engineers are supposed to be smarter than this
-- Sewagemaster
No, Clinton wears Monica's sigar in his ass!
It's not so much that they suck, per se, it's that their sound quality is on par with speakers one tenth their cost. Give me B&W's any day, or NHT; I'd even take Paradigms or Infinitys over Bose.
troll... #1 He started at 2. The post was not moderated in any way.
#2 Everything is drivel. It is all in the degree.
#3 Even drivel is prefered to useless trolls such as yourself.
CAPT. KOONS steps inside the room toward the little boy and bends down on one knee to bring him even with the boy's eyeline. When Koons speaks, he speaks with a slight Texas accent.
CAPT. KOONS
Hello, little man. Boy I sure heard a bunch about you. See, I was a good friend of your Daddy's. We were in that Hanoi pit of hell over five years together.
If it had been me who had not made it, Major Coolidge would be talkin' right now to my son Jim. But the way it worked out is I'm talkin' to you, Butch. I got somethin' for ya.
The Captain pulls an mp3 playing watch out of his pocket.
CAPT. KOONS
This watch I got here was first purchased by your great-granddaddy. It was bought during the First World War in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was bought by private Doughboy Ernie Coolidge the day he set sail for Paris. It was your great-granddaddy's war watch, made by the first company to ever make wrist watches with embedded mp3 players.
You see, up until then, people just carried pocket watches and listened to records on a hand-cranked stereo. Your great-granddaddy wore that watch every day he was in the war. Then when he had done his duty, he went home to your great-grandmother, took the watch off his wrist and put it in an ol' coffee can. And in that can it stayed 'til your grandfather Dane Coolidge was called upon by his country to go overseas and fight the Germans once again. This time they called it World War Two.
Your great-granddaddy gave it to your granddad for good luck. Unfortunately, Dane's luck wasn't as good as his old man's. Your granddad was a Marine and he was killed with all the other Marines at the battle of Wake Island. Your granddad was facing death and he knew it. None of those boys had any illusions about ever leavin' that island alive. So three days before the Japanese took the island, your 22-year old grandfather asked a gunner on an Air Force transport named Winocki, a man he had never met before in his life, to deliver to his infant son, who he had never seen in the flesh, his gold mp3-playing watch. Three days later, your grandfather was dead.
But Winocki kept his word. After the war was over, he paid a visit to your grandmother, delivering to your infant father, his Dad's gold mp3-playing watch. This watch. This watch was on your Daddy's wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi.
He was captured and put in a Vietnamese prison camp. Now he knew if the gooks ever saw the watch it's be confiscated. The way your Daddy looked at it, that watch was your birthright. And he'd be damned if any slopeheads were gonna put their greasy yella hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide somethin'. His ass.
Five long years, he wore this watch up his ass. Then when he died of disentary, he gave me the watch. I hid with uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the watch to you.
Capt. Koons hands the watch to Butch. A little hand comes into FRAME to accept it.
thank you.
the fat-time charlie online serial!!
Dude, go to Radioshack...
It looks like he was saying that he used Win2k/NT anyhow.
Read it again.
All the Casio watches are ugly. I bought a watch last weekend and I must have looked at 15 Casios before I gave up and bought a Timex.
:o)
BTW, if you carry your car keys or your wallet in your pants pocket you are probably offbalance and heavy to one side
Bought an Ironman Triathlon recently because I need to keep track of time at school and my last watch is in pieces (I crushed it with my boot by accident :o( ).
The new Ironman is actually cool. Holds about 40 phone numbers, which is not much, but I barely know 20 people, so im satisfied. Its also a lot more stylish than those ugly casios I looked at! It only a temp replacement though, until can find a watch with good internet connectivity and about 100 meg of memory.
that the reason they cell phones so small is because they are easy to lose, which results in you having to go buy a new phone every time you lose yours.
Complain all you want, but I think it's hot poop..
When I first saw this on the main page, I said "oh my god, this will kick ass".... then the picture loaded.
Ugh. Think about the implications for routing headphone wires from your wrist all the way to your head. It's bad enough going from your beltline up to your head with a typical Walkman, but ON YOUR ARM?
Memo to Casio: invent the Human Bus. MP3/whatever player on the belt, watch on the arm, no wires linking them, but the watch is the controller. Why? So you can control something that's easily accessible (it's on your wrist) rather than fumbling around blindly at something on your belt.
Also, something on your belt could be a lot bigger and heavier (look at pagers/cellphones) as compared to something on the end of your arm.
It could probably use some very low power RF to actually do the watch to belt comms, possibly using the wearer as the conduit. Ideas, ideas...
Bose: Better sound through marketing.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I don't want one. This most defiantly doesn't Rock. In fact it sucks so hard I could use a Win modem and be less upset.
:)
Wait a minute, This is Slashdot ? You mean the place where people like me don't have to lie about our secret longings and perverted lusts ?
Gimy my MP3 watch NOW. GimyGimyGimy and I don't even care how many songs it holds
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Actually, bracers don't give you a +1 AC, they give you a specific AC, e.g. Bracers of Defense AC 6.
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
"What picture?", I asked myself. I went to take a look and noticed the "Downloadable Images" heading. Below it, I saw three links... to TIFF images. WTF? Haven't these people heard of JPEG? I'm still waiting for the damn thing to download.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
re-read the rules for armor. or maybe you think a suit of plate is useless unless its magical. I should be able to quote you the exact page and such, but all my books (except book of humaniods) are beyond arms reach.
Somebody get our flag back!
At $1000+ a pop I think they were marketting this more towards the high end and "extreme" car audio enthusiast. Or at the very least people with a relatively high amount of disposable income. This same market segment is likely to already have amplifiers, signal processors, etc in their installations. And if they don't, what's another $200 for an amp? What is really odd is that this same market segment is also the group of people that will almost definitely hear the mp3 artifacts (or at least claim to) and would more than likely not want to have an "inferior" sound quality source device in their setups. So I wonder what the point of marketting to this segment was in the first place.
Problem is that this was supposed to be a consumer device. I don't remember who did the research but to my knowledge, the research has shown that in order for a consumer device to be popular it has to be in $200 range. Just because some crap player costs $200 for 32Mb, doesnt mean a 4Gb version based on completely different technology should cost linearly more.
For $1000 they can listen to that thing themselves. I would be better off buying a laptop with more HDD space for my car usage. I would also be able to do something useful when being in a road jam. I believe this is a very bad judgement on this company's part. Obviously they want to capitalize on being the first, but this may cost them their advantage. If I were them I would sell as much units as possible for whatever price they can afford to be profitable. It will go down soon anyway.
alexc
Join Majestic-12 Distributed Search Engine
I mean, either you carry around the watch or you carry around the Palm...but never both
In short you are wrong. I don't know how about you but I carry my watches ALWAYS with me, and I believe most people do. At least when comparing to any gadget, your watches are always with you. Do you check your time on Palm? Now, given that, it actually makes sense to built-in as many gadgets as possible in watches, that you carry always with you, which is good for Casio, they are in watches business, not Palm-pilots. The other issue is that because watches are so small, you will probably won't be able to write a perl program (at least till voice-dictation become feasible for these devices), but you can do some stuff and later sync with your palm.
alexc
Join Majestic-12 Distributed Search Engine
I love MODs, S3Ms myself and was listening to them since 1992. However, as you know they are very limited and there is no way you can have a decent song (with words) without making them big. It is possible to probably have any song in them, but they store samples in a very poorly compressed state, and thus make this format not feasible for music. Now, there are some great MODs around, and I still listen to them, but would not you prefer listening to all new music too? And also would not you like to listen to music YOU LIKE, not waiting for someone to make up a poorly cloned MOD? Obviously not, thus the format is basically dead, and soon few people would still remember it. No wonder that MOD4WIN (www.mod4win.com) canned their development a while ago. Luckily we still got a few players around so we can listen to that great music in MODs.
alexc
Join Majestic-12 Distributed Search Engine
That it's a camera disguised in a watch so you can sneak it in places. That a LOT worse than anything Ramsey advertised thier cameras for and look at the fun their having now.
But I think Casio is a bit more than they have the political clout to bully about this kind of thing. Could create too much bad press.
Sorry, I'm just still bitter that I'm going to have to handbuild a transmitter for my next project now that I can't wimp out and buy a 'cube'.
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
I think wired headphones would suck, for all the reasons everyone else is giving -- they catch on things, they're potentially dangerous, etc. Obviously, speakers are not an option. I think this would be a great use for radio or infrared headphones. I know these exist for listening around the house. I haven't seen them advertised recently, but definitely, it's the thing to do.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Why would they stop when you stopped? Nike doesn't care if you're healthy. From the user's point of view, it would just be irritating. You would get free power with piezoelectrics, and just store the energy in a battery for when you were stopped.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
There have been stories posted on slashdot before about CD players that will play data CDs with MP3s. This would be completely awesome, but it seems that these products never made it. Is this product ever going to be a reality?
/. reference. t ml
Here is a
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/03/16/100223.sh
I take my watch off every night, and put it down with my keys and wallet and such. So I don't think putting a rechargable battery in a watch is stupid at all.
The part I don't understand is how they think that people are going to be happy with headphone wire going from their wrist to their heads...it sounds like numerous accidents waiting to happen. Maybe if one strung the wire through one's sleeve, keeping it under one's shirt, then it could work. But that sounds kinda uncomfortable...
Felix
arvind rulez
:P
semis
Palm already has a cell-phone. Qualcomm makes a phone that runs PalmOS and runs Palm-apps, it's called the pdQ smartphone.
Check it out here.
Cheers.
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
hey fuck you stupid asshole
what the HELL are you talking about
What is it with all you dumbasses who are bitching that this would suck because you'd have to have a wire coming from your wrist ?! HELLO? Do the laws of physics demand it be worn on a wrist? For satan's sake if the wire gets in the way put it elsewhere.. Down your shirt into your pocket, or on your belt or whatever. You are all so brilliantly creative, you couldnt think of a solution like that on your own ? And especially I would like to beat the living hell out of the retard who thought that the small 'speakers' on this watch would suck for his shitty ass rap music. The jackass obviously didnt even read the fucking article, yet he wastes our precious time by posting his fucking idiotic uninformed bullshit.
Special Note to : *slashdot lamers* all the ones who comment without reading the article or having any idea what they are talking about MAKE ME SICK. And I'd like to beat you all to death.
Why is this a 5? Sounds more like a troll to me, I think this is a great idea and I'm planning on getting one. Besides you aren't supposed to listen to it with speakers, you're supposed to use headphones. And why the hell are you listening to rap?
When my beloved Casio ATC-1200 altimiter watch died, I stopped wearing a watch - then I got a Plam V. The Palm V is small enough to carry all the time (except when you're swimming - where's my waterproof depth measuring Palm?) and inside the Hard Case it is nearly indestructable. So, now when I want to know the time, I do check my Palm.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I, like the rest of you, love small gadgets. My cell phone weighs 4 oz. my laptop 4 pounds, my rio next to nothing, etc etc etc. My question is this. At what point do things become so small that using them is to difficult? Case in point, Sprint PCS wireless web phones. I have personally not used them, but I have heard that using the web on them is a joke because it is so damn small. I have used cell phones where the buttons are so damn small you can't hit one at a time. I understand the necessity of nano research, and think all of these invntions/gadgets are great, but at some point all functionality is lost because the gadget is too small!!
J
I don't know if they left off the internal amp so much as to save money or to be more like a competition deck with 2 sets of RCA outs.
From what I recall reading on www.empeg.com and from viewing the pictures, the real reason is simply that they ran out of room in the case.
Certainly from the pictures they ha[ve|d] on the site, it's easy to see how a power amp & heatsink can't sit in close proximity to the m/board & hard drive.
At the price point they're marketing at, I certainly believe that retaining the standard head-unit form factor & making it removable was a better decision than compromising on form factor to fit in an amp.
--
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Well, I'm not as price sensitive as you - for the right device. And I guess all I'm going to do here is reaffirm that you can't please everyone at once.
What I'm looking for is a CD-walkman sized or (preferably smaller) device, capable of holding a sizeable fraction of my CD collection (say, 70-80 hours worth), with enough connections to be usable at home, in the car or standalone. Something with enough (rechargeable) battery life to stand me a transatlantic flight (say 10 hours to be on the safe side).
I *know* I've seen (probably on slashdot) a device based on Compaq OEM gear "coming soon" that matches the above. And I've lost the URL!
--
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
umm, just keep it close to your arm, up your neck and straight to the ear, totally hidden. Don't leave it dangling, what kind of caveman are you?
+&x
I'm waiting for a watch with MP3 playback AND a decent recording device. I mean, how cool would it be to have recorded that time when I was called down to the pricipal's office for cursing, and HE cursed at ME? The ultimate irony, caught on a watch-based digital MP3 playing/recording device.
BTW, I doubt that any such recorded conversation would be valid for anything without the prior permission to record and replay anything said by the other party(ies) - but I can think of many, many times where I'd love to have some of the things people say on record to play in front of friends and such =)
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
I personally like the idea, but i'm gonna wait until they get more advanced and have more memory, and get cheaper. Sure, I'll miss out on the new fangled thrill of it all, but the end result will be I'll get a better watch for less/the same money.
Insert mind here.
New Crusoe watch from Transmeta.
It does MP3, e-mail, fax and telephone all in one watch. The Crusoe 3000 watch will also come with TV tuner and DVD-player as optional extras.
Transmeta have spent several months in R&D to come up with the ideal watch for all users. Aside from running the new Linux-Lite (a cut-down version to allow the wearer to lift their arm), the new Crusoe watch can also run Macintosh, Windows and Alpha compiled binaries. New developments in nano-technology have enabled Transmeta to incorporate a full-size keyboard in the watch, with a neatly concealed stylus for hand-writing recognition on the 1024 x 768 capable TFT screen.
A spokesman for Transmeta said that Linus Torvalds had actually been wearing a fully-working prototype during his speech, but had decided at the last minute not to announce it, as the bulb had blown in the watch's built-in LCD projector.
The watch will be available from the 19th of January, and is rumoured to be priced in the sub-$300 market to compete in the popular PDA market.
insignificant sig
Sad to see that on Casio's website it requires a computer with Windows 98. Is anyone aware of any open-standard protocols under development for communications with devices like these? Casio definitely deserves a job well done for turning a wrist-watch into useful, slick devices. And I thought the Timex Beepwear was cool. It's only a matter of time before watches will be an all-in-one gadget.
- Detritus
"I never really liked computers, but then the server went down on me"
It has an IR port to get the images out. :)
I could see it being a conversation piece at the least. I hope it does a 24 hour clock. My Casio G-Shock with digital compass is getting a bit beaten, but I like it's 24 hour clock :). April sounds like the right time to upgrade...
This isn't exactly Dick Tracyesque, but I guess it'll do.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Linking with Microsoft® Outlook(TM)
:)
PC-UNITE is able to perform data synchronization with Microsoft® Outlook(TM), one of the most popular PIM applications among business professionals the world over. This means you can download your existing personal data resources and take them along with you.
1) Is there a way to link to it without Outlook? I don't use outlook under Win2K.
2) Is there a way to get this to work under Win2K/NT in the first place?
3) Linux support?!
Perhaps Casio has forgotten its target audience here. Geeks will want linux support and not many normal people will want an mp3 watch
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
Hello! That was "From the article," to qoute your heading. The magazine made that part up, not Casio. It think they were JOKING. J-O-K-I-N-G. Say it with me now. J-O-K-I-N-G.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
While MS-only support isn't cool (bad Casio, bad) these watches do hold some promise (good, Casio, good).
The MP3 player could definitely benefit from longer playtime (tops at 66 mins at low Q?) and the recording option you mention would be simply macnifico. Think about the eavesdropping and campfire taping opportunities.
Now, what else should my wrist, and future, hold? How about the above _and_ the snapshot taking ability _and_ realtime video to & fro my lil' Casiocator with telephony to boot! With voice recognition, no less.
Just think about the delight when you whisper to your watch "call gf", the little gadget knows video is okay for this link and a few seconds later your gf can see your big nose and nose hair through the little fisheye lens on your watch, while you can witness your loving gf dressing up and milkman making inauspicious exit in the background... wonders of the future!
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
The worst part isn't 'specialized hardware'... there are USB headphones/speakers/mics in development now or already shipping. The problem is cost: most of them are $50 and up. :P
So, what's your point? List price for the MP3 watch is $249 for the 32MB one. Even if they were able to provide a 4GB model it would supposedly cost $31,872.
In short, I think a cost of $1099 is reasonable for a first cut at a new technology for a new small company. Heck, I remember I paid over $800 for by Blaupunkt CD player I have in my car. Sure, that was quite a few years ago, but the first products in a new area are always over-priced. Look at the initial cost of flat-screen CRT monitors or the newer LCD monitors. I also paid over $1000 for my 17" monitor, but paid less than $500 for my 19" monitor a while later. The moral of the story? Complaining about a cost of $1099 is unjustified when this is one of the few products available in it's market space. Did you take a look at the details? All the features?
Would it be better if the major car CD player manufacturers got on the bandwagon and had products in this market? Yes, of course. It would bring the price down across the board and create competition where there is little right now. But Casio does not make car audio systems. It's kinda like complaining that Sony does not have a new printer out that is capable of the Internet Printing Protocol, and instead came out with a new display technology such as direct retinal imaging.
Like I said, quit whining, you can't always get what you want, and what you can get usually isn't cheap when if first comes out.
See Empeg.com and stop complaining.
For one good use of a MP3 capable watch what about people who exercise by running or jogging? Seems like a watch would be much better than something you clip on your belt (which many people don't wear when jogging anyway).
Whine Whine Whine...
Of course, your arm would get very tired....
www.eFax.com are spammers
I still ask the same question: why not music module (MOD, S3M, IT, XM) players!?
they use very little space compared to MP3s and the sound quality is excellent. they require even less CPU processing power and there are thousands of great ones to choose and download on the internet (and gives a kick about those piracy issues).
jaime g. wong
jaguar / paperclip
This reminds me of those spy gadgets you wanted when you were little... You know, the ones that were super ultra-cool and small that you could bring anywhere and pretend you were like James Bond. Tiny little cameras, lasers in wristwatches, you know the deal.
~~~NO CARRIER~~~
Samsung Watch Phone
Xeenon already makes a really good mp3 car player (so i hear....i dont acutally have one) for $550. it plays Mp3 CDs and uses a proprietary OS, however, so the prestiege of using linux and not having skips are absent...but it looks really cool. check it out.. http://www.xeenon.com
Hey, this is progress, all over- it's just awesome that we keep this up. Remember those calculator watches? I rememebr all my friends used to have those in school... But how easy is it to use? That was the crappy part! I think the point here is not so much that it has a wristband... but the miniaturization. I would probably hang this off a belt loop or something- but hey! It sure would be nice to be able to take this thing wherever you go. Normally, i don't like casio... I think i'll wait for the Rolex :)
Yep, or as we say in the industry: Bose-Bring Other Sound Equipment.
Brian Haskin
About 12 years ago I bought a Casio Data Bank watch. This is rather similar to this PIM watch: You can store 50 items, each being either a phonenumber+name (12 characters), or a schedule (10 characters, date+time). It has a small membrane keyboard that is surprisingly easy to use with your fingernails. And also a countdown timer, stopwatch, 24 timezones, alarm, time, dayofweek, year etc. etc. Very easy in everyday use and small. Having such a PDA in your watch is so much better than having a 'portable' PDA like a PalmPilot is that you never can forget them (because you always wear them).
In this respect PIM is nothing but a new term for the same thing, only without the little keyboard (which sucks), but with more capacity. If you keep on forgetting dragging your PDA with you, go for one of these.
Oh yes and another extra: The PC interface.
I wouldn't bother about it, because I usually
don't have my PC near me when making appointments.
I've had a G-Shock for like 15 years now without ever replacing the battery. The rubber around the actual watch itself is slowly coming off. I think they are great.. and look tough. It's been banged around, ran over with a car, hit with a hockey puck playing broomball, smashed by lumber on a contruction job, you name it.. and it only has some scratches on the glass. I can't wait to get one of these mp3 watches!!
I don't know if they left off the internal amp so much as to save money or to be more like a competition deck with 2 sets of RCA outs.
Rather than think in James Bond terms, I like to think of it in Cyberpunk 2020 terms. Nowadays it seems all I have to do is pull out my Chrome Book 1, flip to a random page, and there's next weeks new techno-gizmo to be announced :)
Not that most nerds mind, but I think I would rather have something a little less intrusive. Reminds me of the first Casio altimeter watch that came out. Ultra cool, but it kept slamming into doorways.
Still, I'm tempted... I was hoping I had outgrown my nerd lack of fashion, but my love of gadgets is threatening to overwhelm my good sense. :)
---
Yes, you always have your watch with you because it's primary use is a timepiece and secondary function is a PIM. On a Palm, the primary use is PIM and secondary is timepiece.
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I may not carry my Palm around on my wrist, but I keep it in my briefcase so when an alarm goes off, I am nearby. The only time I don't have my Palm near me is when I'm at home and don't have any appointments anyway!
Now that I think about it, it must be a real pain to enter information on the watch (scroll through letters one at a time, etc) so maybe this is design to enter information on Palm where it is much easier then send it to your watch. If that is the case, I sure hope that it is an IR transfer and not some funky wire or worse a Palm-to-PC-back-to-Watch method.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
The hardware is closed. I can understand that decision. Hell, if I made expensive hardware which operates in an electronically noisy environment, I won't risk additional warranty problems with people fiddling around inside -- there are too many people out there who think they know what they're doing. The software is open enough for me.
Why not put the headphones on the USB bus? Fewer connectors means smaller watch. Also maybee usable with that whole USB is cool thing. Of course this does lead to specialized hardware...
Seems like you're stuck putting an amp somewhere else tho.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
NEW!!!
A wristwatch that is FREE, all you have to do is get it and as an added bonus you will recieve through weekly upgrades, SPECIAL OFFERS from companies that are EXCLUSIVE to FreeWatch owners!
i just thought this up, if some company is going to use that, um i have patented it already so if you even think about using this i will sue you for all your cpus and money and anything else i think of.
seriously, this is my prediction of what will happen, then add a small color lcd screen and aol is advertising on your watch.
icq:=22921393;
QUOTE
Need to sneak a picture of your competition's new product but can't get a camera past the security checkpoint?
/QUOTE
That is not legal from what i know, i dont see how they can say that and not get into trouble.
icq:=22921393;
i wear a timex too and i cant kill the thing...i have had it for years and never had to change a battery or anything, save a wristband...
my watch beeps, thats all i need it to do
icq:=22921393;
Forget watch-style players with tiny headphones! Give me a Boom Hat(tm,(c),pat pend): MP3 player, loudspeakers and battery pack that I can wear on my head! It gives me the same, great skull-splitting sound I get from my car stereo plus I can really annoy the other people around me at the store, in the elevator and on the street!
Honesty. Loyalty. Kindness. Laughter. Generosity. Magic!
I whole-heartedly agree. The LAST thing on this planet I want is wires running from my watch on my wrist to my headphones on my head. Total foolishness... Of course, if they hooked up with all the people out there like the MIT Media Lab doing research on running wires through fabric, then *maybe*, but still doubtful....only in winter...laugh...
If you look at the picture, it says "Watch Camera" right on the thing. It also has a very distinctive appearance. There's no way that any place with decent security is going to overlook one of these things. I could see it working at a rock concert, where you only have to go under the direct scrutiny of the security guards once, but trying to use it to get your competitors' secrets would be pretty much useless. With that much effort needed to avoid detection, (you'd have to keep covering the thing back up with your sleeve, etc) you might as well just get some other kind of spy-type camera.
Marissa
Many of us have posted on the discomfort of having headphones attached to your watch. But functionality seems much more confusing.
A headphone jack takes up considerable space, especially on a watch. So unless the headphones use the USB port, I'm really curious as to how this thing has 64 MB mem plus a sound system plus a time chip plus a display.
Of course, a solution would be radio-linked headphones.
===
-Ravagin
Karma: T-rexcellent.
OK, so it's big... for a watch. Does that mean that it's big for an MP3 player? Is it, say, more convenient than having a Rio strapped to your wrist?
Ya gotta keep in mind what a thing like this is gonna be used for - you want music (of your choice) and you want to take it with you. Maybe it's a sport thing (running, working out, whatever) but regardless, the idea here is not to have some klunky box on the end of your headphones... in that sense, even if it is big, it's not.
---GEC
Bow-ties are cool.
Personally, if I were to get a portable mp3 player, I would hope that it takes MP3 burned CD-R's, what's the point of spending so much cash for only 64MB of storage (about 70 mins audio). I can burn an audio cd that holds 74 minutes audio and use a regular cd player for a fraction of the cost.
I can burn an mp3 cd that holds 800 minutes audio.. but this would only be readable on a PC. I'd rather not carry around a laptop computer just to listen to my music on the subway to school.
Now as for G-Shock sales.. I've had my casio G-Shock watch for about 8 years now.. This was the first of many watches that has not actually broken. This watch can take a beating and still keep working. The reason why they can't sell any more G-Shocks is because the people who wanted them already baught them years ago, and they still work ok.
Finally the watches that I allways have seen in Bond-movies, excluding the explosives ofcourse.
;-)). So either you need a very long cable or not wear it around your wrist.
:-)
I wonder though, how much fun will it be listening to the mp3's, since arms will be moving around and this could jerk the headphones out of your ear (this could lead to injury, which could lead to lawsuit (only in America), which could lead to alot of laughing about the American legals system, I love it allready
The PC Unite watch would be the perfect invention for me, cause it would alarm me of meetings I forget. Also the 8200 character text browser is great for exams.
Use Adsense for Charity
i would much rather have a large mp3 player like the 4.8 gig ones they were promising a while back than listen to my watch with headphones. there wouldn't be a point in wearing this since the damn cord would wrap around your arm all the time.
instead of wasting time on portables that you have to change every 30 minutes, try making one that is reasonabally priced, and functional.
'Mullethead. A hairstyle that's a way of life'
Just a few months ago a friend of mine was complaining about the deluge of useless technology that was being forced on consumers while good ideas fail to be implemented. this MP3 player watch seems like a case in point.
Who's going to listen to music from their watch? I can't imagine which is sillier i) a watch with headphones or ii) the weak, tinny sound of rap music coming from a watch with speakers.
Why didn't their focus groups ask users of MP3s what they want before making these useless toys. Why can't I find a decent car MP3 player that detaches and connects to my PC so i don't have to worry about playing MP3s in my car. When will a car MP3 player with an optional IP address make it's debut? Why is Casio wasting our time with this feeble attempt to remain relevant and cutting edge in an increasingly digital world...are sales from G-shock that bad?
Now all I need is to make these things run linux and get a beowulf cluster of them on my arm...
Hmm, looks promising... After looking at the picture, I got the impression that the headphone jack looks like an adapter that is plugged into the USB port. I imagine this is how it works - remove the jack to download music, put it back in to listen. Personally, I think this looks awfully cool, and I for one don't think it would be too bad having your headphones hooked up to your wrist. I spend all day at the keyboard programming, and this would be just right... I could listen to MP3s whilst coding. SWEEEET... Only trouble is, no software for Linux. Of course, I'm sure it won't be long before someone writes the necessary program. I really hate it when cool products come out with support for Windows only. That's not the only OS out there, people... It seems to me that the revenue they could make by adding Linux support, etc., would far outweigh the minimal cost of porting the download software. Oh well. A bit pricy though... $249 for a 32MB model. I would prefer the 64MB model myself.
okies so it doesn't *look* good but imagine the possibilitys :) you could get photos in all kind of places, anytime there is that kodak moment.
:(
:)
didn't mention a port out for the camera watch though
the idea of the mp3 watch doesn't appeal - i'd rather listen to an mp3 walkman type affair, rather than have my head tethered to my wrist, and i dont use MS Outlook, so i don't really have much use for the PIM one
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Aminal - DRUMMS!!
Timex is an opensource watch that was originally designed by Linex Torvalds to be a MINEX-like watch. Linex got together a loosely-knit group of watchmakers around the net to work on his new project.
Today, Timex is a fully functional, POSEX complient UNEX-like Watch, with its all the features you would expect in a modern watch.
Many users are even moving over from MicroWatch watches.
(i know its ot, sue me)
Hmmn.. I wonder how a watches small battery holds up to the decoding of an MP#. Plus the drain of a speaker. Hmmn.. I bet they dont get to good of a lifetime.
Things are getting smaller and smaller, it just amazes me.
Though the day I'll be really impressed is when my girlfriend is going to play her MP3's out of her earrings :P
Another silly idea: Nike, Adidas, Reebok or whoever could make MP3 shoes. To listen to your MP3's, you always have to run, when you stop, the MP3's stop. (With proper IrDA communication, you could double the available memory, and you could do stereo music with your left and right shoes)
Radio waves containing MP3 information? This could save a bit of bandwidth (read: more channels in a certain amount of bandwidth), and could be a real appliance. AM, FM, FM/MP3 radios. :)
In North America, as long as the images that you captured were captured in public places, it is perfectly legal. However, the legal definition of public would make all the difference in the world. It comes down to whether or not the space is a space where there would be a reasonable expectation of privacy. But there is also the issue of whether or not sound is recorded also. I don't know enough about the legalities to elaborate any more than that.
I do think that if you are walking down a public street, or in a public park, or on a public beach, you are in a public space, and what you do there can legally be recorded (visually). If you are in a private venue, such as a stadium for a concert, then you would probalbly not be allowed to record things without permisson. In fact, most venues such as stadiums post signs which expressly prohibit recording of any kind. The laws regarding audio recordings (eg, of a conversation between two other parties) are different.
the average mp3 for me is around 5 megs ... which means that this thing could hold a grand total of 12 songs for me (if I got the 64 meg version) Now this is that of a regular cd player ... but lets look at a CD player ... fairly portable ... removable interchangeable media ... and hey it costs less than $100 ... now if the watch could do that then hey I'd get one. The other factor is battery life, I don't want to change a battery everyday and they don't make rechargeable watch batteries. So this is a good idea, but probably won't fly with the buying world. The other thing is getting the mp3's on the watch for the good old linux users out there it looks like you'll have to boot windows if you want to get your new $250 toy to even work.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
After looking at the picture of the MP3 watch, it looks like it's about the same size as your standard-issue headphone ear. Why not just slim down the LCD to show a 'track' number, enlarge the controls a bit, and slap it onto a pair of headphones? You don't have to worry about any wires or added costs of a wireless connection between player and listening device. The headphones could also be made foldable so you can put them in your pocket.
I think that they need to make a scientific calculator version of the Data-Bank series. Graphing optional. I love MP3s and all, but I think Casio skipped a few steps when they never released something that had the caliber of the TI-85. :^)
-- Does Rain Man use the Autistic License for his software?
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Not at all --- it is the speakers that are the weakest link here, whereas the quality of cheap audio amplification is comparatively superb. The car is *not* an audiophile environment, and $10 is ample nowadays for all the integrated components needed to provide perceptually reasonable in-car sound, far better in fact than the quality of the original speaker installation. ($10 audio component cost for a built-in amplifier easily maps to a $100-$150 typical radio-cassette player cost.)
Furthermore, there must be plenty of people (I extrapolate from myself) that would spend quite a lot of money on an MP3 in-car player just for the convenience while being perfectly happy with the "hifi experience" provided by the car's default sound installation, so Empeg definitely *has* lost a potential market segment by that decision.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The kicking that Casio are getting in this thread may be well deserved, if for no other reason than that they don't seem to have woken up to the fact that Microsoft is no longer the only game in town. Their search box returns nothing for "Linux" anyway.
Looks like there's a good opening here for a more progressive competitor in the gadget world.
Does anyone know who their main competitor is currently?
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The in-car unit from empeg.com has a few problems.
It's far too expensive, it's a closed system at the present time (though they say they'll open it to techies eventually), and rather incredibly, it doesn't have an audio amplifier built in so that it can't simply replace a normal integrated car entertainment unit. That decision must have saved them less than $10 while totally destroying their chances in the market.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
It seems that Casio still hasn't figured out it's possible to be both functional and stylish at the same time. Look at the pictures - the thing is butt ugly. I wouldn't be caught dead wearing, not to mention the possible ergonomic issues of bead offbalance and heavy to one side from wearing it. Guess I'll just have to wait for my Rolex gold MP3 watch - it's already in the mail.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Clinton wears Timex :)
:(
Just yesterday my Casio G-shock died after being bashed against the wall
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I think I am going off hold off getting another MP3 player until I can get one embedded in my skull.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
exactly, that empeg is not a car stereo, it's a car Jukebox. Your entire CD collection, enough music for a week long car ride, no changing media, ever, no skipping, random selection, playlists, Linux. It offers a lot and costs a lot, wait 2 years, it'll be $250.
:)
And if you really need something to do to stop bitchin', build one yerself
+&x
The title says it all: how much would it suck to have your headphones anchored to your wrist? Imagine the tangling, tripping, and yanking. Imagine putting a coat on, or taking it off. Imagine riding a bike and signalling. Imagine smoking. Imagine typing at a keyboard. Imagine carrying a briefcase, or adjusting a knapsack's straps. Damn, would that ever suck.
How legal could this watch be, as they even advertise it as "to get a camera past security"..
:)
I'll get one if they get to sweden of course
From the Empeg website
Cost: projected price US$1099 (excluding shipping) for 4Gb version.
This implies that not only is the player not available (actually it does seem to be available as beta, whatever that means) but it's going to cost more than 3 times the cost of an average MP3 player. The purpose of my post is that there should be more companies working on car MP3 players (Sony, Pioneer, Rio, etc.) instead of 1 company selling an overpriced buggy product.
PS: Check out MP3Car.com if you're interested in finding out about playing MP3s in your car.
Oh, this is too cool. I am ordering one right away! I hope it comes with good sound though. Hopefully tiny little Bose cube speakers would be ideal :)
When you put on a jacket, the headphone cable simply goes up the jacket sleeve. No fuss, no muss, and it's actually LESS likely to catch on things than a regular headphone cable.
The biggest difficulty was the controls -- the dials were so small you basically ended up selecting a single station, and leaving it at that. I expect that the MP3 watch will be similar -- people will just press PLAY and nothing else.
I have no
I've owned a numerous deal of gadgety watches from Casio, as several co-workers of mine. They're truly ingenious little wonders, and we often do make excuses to justify purchases, but they never seem to last long.
First I had a watch with a calculator. The buttons were minute but I got used to them after a bit. It was a nice device, and fairly solid. This is the only Casio I've owned that's managed to last. It was annihilated by a racquetball that hit me in the wrist. I mean, no way it could've been saved. I give this one credit though, as it held up through years of showers, swimming, and abuse.
Then I moved onto the Databank 150. It was a nice watch, and it really was quite useful, freeing me from carrying around a small notebook for phone numbers and reminders. Unfortunately, one of the buttons had a habit of sticking inside the watch, which would drain the battery in 2-3 days. Friends reported that small bumps and even a decent static charge would knock out their organizer for good.
Then I moved to the touchscreen version. Ah, no more square inch keyboard. It was great, until a static discharge from a combination of a monitor and the fiber/cat5 switching system knocked it out. Being under warranty I shipped it out to Casio in which its currently being repaired.
The other thing that was often a nuisance is getting a battery replaced. No shop in the area was Casio certified and had the battery replacement tools, except one. I went in asking to see if they replaced the batteries in a Casio and they told me to come back the following day around 6, in which her brother with his special tool would replace it for me. I wanted my info back, so I came back and he gladly took my watch and used his special tool -- a paperclip which he masterfully bent and shaped to remove the covering -- and replaced the battery. What can I say, it worked damn well.
Currently though I have a pretty stock $18 Timex w/ Indiglo. It gets me by. These new watches look keen, specially the mp3 watch, and the new organizer, but I have some reservation in buying yet another watch to again handle and lose important information.
I think I'll just wait until the color Palm Pilots come along and just use my watch as a watch. =)
--
< funny >
/funny >
They Casio site wouldn't let me in until I allowed HTTP_USER_AGENT through my proxy. The dastards! We should all nuke their site for having the temerity to invade our privacy like that!
<
Seriously though, with all these single function wrist gadgets, you'd have to be an octopus to have everything: PCS phone (Swatch), Camera (Casio), MP3 player (Casio), AM/FM Radio (various), TV (Casio), PIM (Casio). Why don't they combine them all into one uber-gadget that you wear like a bracer. That way, not only do you have all your toys, you also have AC +1 on one arm!
www.eFax.com are spammers
I don't understand why Casio is advertsising their PIM watch as "being able to syncronize with a Palm device". Aren't the functions of these devices identical? I mean, either you carry around the watch or you carry around the Palm...but never both. How annoying would it be to have to mute two alarms every time you had an appointment?
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And as far as the MP3 watch goes, I don't understand the point of having rechargeable batteries. I have owned Casio watches for years, and the main reason I buy the waterproof ones is so I never have to take it off. If I have to take the MP3 watch off my wrist every night to recharge the batteries, then I'm going to be walking around my house staring at the blank wrist where my watch is supposed to be.
The wrist camera, however, is a totally cool idea that has almost 1000 possible abuses. It's small enough for perverts to embed in their shoes for crystal clear upskirts. Take off the bands and then you can wedge it into a crack in a changing room. If Casio is truly sick, they'll link the timer to the camera so you can program the watch to take pictures in X minute intervals.
Way to go, Casio!
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Perfect for those of us who are tone deaf. Always keeps you in time with the music. Don't play anything too fast though...
I like that camera watch.. I see two good uses for it, snapping pictures where you aren't supposed to and those candid moments where you wish you had a camera and don't. The pictures will be low quality, read fun snaps, but it's a picture where you otherwise would have none. I'm guessing the actual model will make the avocet vertech alpine look like a feather. It will be a great watch if you wear it every day but it will be too big to wear every day. In my weakness, I could see my self forking over the cash even though I know it won't work so well. I suspect this watch will end up being outlawed in a few places.
The MP3 watch is also a wicked cool idea but I just don't see the practcality in it. I'd rather go buy a rio and then have a watch that doesn't run out of batteries and lose the time. I'm betting this one will be a real piece of junk.
Then the palmpilot watch is cool but I've got a palmpilot. Watches aren't terribly good interfaces for a lot of stuff, I think my palmpilot will be magnitudes easier to use and it's small enough. Probably the best functioning one of these watches but it will be a pain to use it and it's not nearly as cool as the camera.
Why no cellphone watch yet? I would think that Casio's number one competition with this stuff is the integrated PCS phone market, if palm signs a deal with Ericson or something and integrates a pilot into a cellphone that would be a pretty killer product.
I'm betting that all of them will be junk but at least the camera will be cool enough that people will buy them.
More info from ZD-Net.