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Assorted CES Gizmos
Frank Buckheimer writes "The CES 2003 show in Las Vegas will give us some pretty nice introductions of some brand new products." Other submitters sent in news about a "Mini PC" the size of a paperback book, and a spiffy digital sound projector. mbstone writes "Bill Gates announced a line of MS wristwatches that receive email, stock quotes, sports scores, etc. by FM radio. Gates claims it's a 'whole new product concept that was completely incubated by Microsoft Research,' but it's really just a reprise of the Seiko MessageWatch -- mine became just a watch, sans atomic time, as of 12/31/99 when Seiko called it quits. Once bitten, twice shy. Has anybody proposed an open standard for such gadgets so that new wristwatch-data-service providers can enter the market when the old provider leaves?"
It probaby has some sort of scary homing device on it...
-Henry
--- #@$DF@#2%@^%3^&*$%FRHG%%[NO CARRIER]
Bill Gates announced a line of MS wristwatches that receive email, stock quotes, sports scores, etc. by FM radio.
This is stupid... I won't buy one of these watches until it plays Quake 3!
I think you just did...
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
And it probably runs XP, needs 512M of RAM and a P4 processor, burns your arm, keeps shitty time, locks up, is riddled with security holes, and will end up the target of some crazy project to hack in and boot linux on it.
so how do you hook your watch up to the internet to activate it??
Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
If you think that being able to receive stock quotes and sports scores on your watch is cool, then pleas, kill yourself.
Bill Gates announced a line of MS wristwatches that receive email, stock quotes, sports scores, etc.
Microsoft: Now we know where you wanted to go today!
or perhaps:
Microsoft: At least the BSOD's are smaller now.
Has anybody proposed an open standard for such gadgets so that new wristwatch-data-service providers can enter the market when the old provider leaves?
I was just asking myself the same thing the other day. It's a problem we've all had to deal with. Think of the thousands - no, millions - of interoperability problems that would solve. Think of the time saved. Think of the better living through convenience it would bring. If not, why not? I can't believe nobody has done this yet.
The CES is in town. Prepare to work double shifts! Young men will venture forth from basements across the country, paying big bucks in order to be deflowered by you. Dress like a 'booth babe' and score big!
Older nerds will scrape your gullet with their rough beards, then tearfully confess that they're married, and this is the first time they've cheated on their homely wives. Laugh in their face, then go get some more geeks!
Sell, sell, sell, ladies! This is your time! And don't fall for that "I can get you out of here, and set you up with your own adult website line." The first bitch that gives me that shit will hear it from the side of my cane.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Once bitten, twice shy.
:D
dude i wouldnt worry about you hitting another y2k
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
> That's gotta be a mistake.
Well, on the 5.8" screen the 6 looked like a 4, so they got fooled. Squinty strangely didn't help.
...Microsoft has announced:
1) A wristwatch pager that supports 'push' data streams a la Pointcast (c. 1996); and
2) A 'mini-PC' that has the same form factor (and probably fewer features) than Apple's late Newton device (c. 1993).
If releasing ten year old technology isn't innovation, I don't know what is!
"A man with one watch always knows what time it is. A man with two is never sure."
Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of MS watches.
Not that it'll matter anyway:
"Excuse me, but could you tell me the time?"
"Well, I'd like to. Really I would. But the EULA on my watch says that its output is a trade secret and covered under DMCA copyright protection. At the very least if I told you I'd have to kill you."
The Dick Tracy watch didn't turn out quite the way we imagined when we were kids, did it?
KFG
It doesn't have to be useful, it's just a gizmo.
The people who want this are the same ones that wore the completely impractical and unusable calculator-watches in high school.
I still fondly remember double-checking my trig homework with one of those, while I held it's owners head in the toilet.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Several other tech companies have tried this and failed. Will MS learn from history?
1.) The Apple/John Sculley watch --- Your own watch fires you every hour.
2.) The IBM watch -- They had a $35M marketing budget, and forgot to ship the watches to their distributors.
3.) The Xerox watch -- The Xerox executives decided that people don't want watches, they want photocopiers. Project scrapped.
4.) The Compaq watch -- "Sorry, we discontinued that watch. It's your problem now."
5.) Dude, I'm getting a watch!
Q: How important is Spot toward the goal of ubiquitous computing, where there are smart devices everywhere?
A: It will really make people think. [If] you can get the instant message on your wrist, people will start to think, "Gosh, this information is everywhere." And it's not just text. We can download a program that understands smiley faces and whatever you want. You could even have some specialized symbols that are just for you. So I think it's a big milestone in that.
Way to push the envelope, Mr. Gates.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
You see, on the mini PC you'll be able to see trailers on the full and glorious 5.8" screen with sound coming over a crappy little piezo speaker.
Try matching *that* technology on your desktop or home theater.
It's a brave new world.
KFG
How are they going to fit the EULA on that?
The Microsoft Watch - it watches you!!!
Never attribute to stupidity what can be construed as a monopoly preservation tactic.
Well the try everything approach worked for Edison. He did coin the phrase "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." Though then Tesla came around and royally pissed him off. As everything Tesla tried worked.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
The MS wristwatch takes a licking and keeps onIRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL *** Address 8012abce has base at 80100000 - tick.exe
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A39647
One of the most pointless inventions known to mankind (Although we still think that they are a pretty neat idea). Although we already had a perfectly good way of telling the time we thought that we ought to invent anouther one just because we can. If it had stopped their it would only have been mildly pointless but no. The people who made these watches decided that they sould have lights, oh and an altimeter, and air pressure function and oh it should do all this at 1000m under water and with a series of musical alarms whist telling you the time in 50 countries. What mankind failed to realise is that situations which REQUIRE knowing your altitude and the time in bangladesh and Paris whilst 100m underwater in the dark to the tune of the national anthem, are quite rare..
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A183476
For hundreds of years, clocks, pocket watches and most recently wrist watches have been elegantly ticking off the seconds with style, grace and perhaps most importantly an ever increasing degree of accuracy.
Analogue watches (especially the expensive ones with sweeping second hands) are testimony to human kinds mastery of materials, art and science.
Digital watches are not.
I have resisted the urge to mention that man thinks these ugly things
"a pretty neat idea" -
Ooops.
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Oh he goes on and on and on about digital watches. I wish I could find that quote about how Humans are the only species that things digital watches are a good idea.
Oh, about half-past Blue-Screen...
Oh, sure. The manufacturing sector should suffer because you want to use the same technology for more than a few years. Where would our world economy be if we didn't replace (every few years) all our LPs with 8-track tapes, our 8-track tapes with cassettes, our cassettes with CDs, our CDs with music DVDs, etc. And that's just how music listeners help to maintain world economic growth. Get with the program!!! :-)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
"Hey buddy, got the time?" "Hold on, gotta reboot my watch...."