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Real PDA Wristwatch
Larry Groebe writes "Just before COMDEX, Fossil announced a new PDA in a wristwatch. Based on the Palm OS, this is nothing less than a complete Palm Pilot on your wrist. See here for features and a picture.
This is completely UNLIKE Fossil's *first* attempt at a wrist PDA, which was a hopeless view-only gadget. This new model allows regular Graffiti input and appears to run all Palm programs! At $149, I may be the first in line when it comes out next spring."
Cool. This brings to mind the Linux watch IBM made some time ago. Does anyone know what's become of that? Is it still in development or was it just a showpiece?
-- Cheers!
and like all the other pda/pc watches it's missing one crucial feature...
WATERPROOF!
Why cant they throw in that small and desperately needed thing? It must be waterproof... so I can wear it swimming,snorkling,in the shower... how about just in the shower/tub without fear of it getting killed?
why cant they do that?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Would anyone seriously use the dinky little stylus that's part of the band? Talk about an ergonomic nightmare (and a choking hazard). Why not just include a selectable-point pen with every watch, that will let you switch between blue/black/red ink and a stylus? That seems to make much more sense from an actual functionality standpoint than that tiny stylus, letting you use the PDA concurrently and seamlessly with more traditional dead-tree technology.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Never went in for calculators on my hips or wrists - this seems like the logical extension of that sort of geekwear. Not the kind of fashion statement I want to make.
Plus - it's sooooo tiny, don't think I could read it anyways.
Next!
And what's with the two hour battery life?
Otherwise, very very cool.
Fossil is a hugely popular brand (they even have Fossil stores in airports!) and with the low margins on watches, they might be looking for a new market. I mean, right now, any Taiwanese sweatshop can put together a POS digital watch, hell, some kid in his garage could do that.
Remember when watches only had an hour and a minute hand? And then all of a sudden, they had a second hand, and now the date, several time zones, "chrono" mode and other stuff.
The PDA is the next step in complexity and "needed" features for a wristwatch. If Fossil were to come out with its own Palmtop OS, or maybe even take Opie or something, they could ink a deal with a few fortune 500 companies just with the force of their name.
And what happens at "What's up Wednesday" when your technology-fetishizing boss passes out a gaggle of huge PDA-watches to all the gals in accounting? I think you may have to start firing up the copy machine to print out resumes!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
It does have the regular screen, but they modified the default apps to have bigger icons. Even so, it would have about .2 mm pixels; way to small to be useful. With even the .5 mm mechanical pencils you would end up always hitting multiple pixels on the digitizer.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
In addition, I was on a train from Paddington Station in London, England this week, and got to see an actual 3G phone working. An employee was testing it (yes, there is a nearly complete 3G network in the UK). The phone was from a Japanese manufacturer, had twin cameras and a very high quality feel. But what blew me away, and this will mean the death of ALL OTHER phones the moment this puppy is launched in the UK in a few months is the fact that it has a PIP (Picture In Picture) feature thanks to the two cameras. The other person sees your face in a window in front of the view you can see, or the other way around. The video quality was at least 10 fps, and the killer app will be shopping. "Dahling, is this the wine you wanted me to get?" And of course, there will be the drunk twit who forgets he has a videophone and while at the bar with a cute chic in view calls his wife to say he will be home late because he's working late at the office. (What he meant to say was orifice.)
(All the above is true. I am not revealing my sources, but within 3 months, everything is going to change. Goodbye privacy. Everyone will be in view of someone's video phone at some point every week. Get out the lipstick baby!)
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Shouldn't they call this a wrist pilot?
-Chris
I don't know that we were all that guy.
There might be some people from Sun Microsystems here.
Scot McNeely at Sun is/was a hockey player, and he keeps that sort of guys around him.
He was the guy who slammed you up against the lockers.
> Actually, I believe no modern watch claims to be
>"waterproof", it's always "water resistant to xx meters"
Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches are designated as "waterproof": From their website: "An Officially Certified Swiss Chronometer, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual is equipped with a waterproof case, a sapphire crystal and a self-winding movement." Sorry, their site is too annoying to navigate, so I can't give an actual link.
Urban legend used to say that this was because Rolex trademarked the phrase "waterproof", so everyone else had to use "water resistant." I'm not sure if this is the case (I've never seen them stick TM at the end of the phrase in their literature), but the reason could be that Rolex watches are made a little differently than a regular watch.
Rolex Oyster watches are cast all in one piece or slug, rather than assembled from multiple pieces. As a result, when the watch is put together, it is basically sealed. The result is rather heavy -- to give you an idea, take off your shoe, attach that to your wrist, and then walk around for a while -- but they're built to last.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Anyone remember the Timex Datalink?. It wasn't a full fledged PDA, but it was really cool back in 1996. The watch would read bars on the monitor to dowload information from the PC. It was a nice way to keep track of phone numbers and Appointments.
.2 mm pixels; way to small to be useful. With even the .5 mm mechanical pencils you would end up always hitting multiple pixels on the digitizer.
When have you needed to address individual pixels in the normal course of PDAing?! Certainly not for Graffiti or selecting icons or widgets.
We keep duplicating desktop User Interface (UI) metaphor to mobile device, i.e., copy GUI, web stuffs to PDA, cellular phone and now, watch. Come on, it wouldn't work well. We need an innovative UI for mobile device. I don't know what it will be. But I do know it wouldn't be GUI stuff. Probably audio based UI.