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?"

Comments

Noo! Not the MS Wristwatch!

[djhankb]

It probaby has some sort of scary homing device on it...

-Henry

Re:Noo! Not the MS Wristwatch!

[karmawarrior]

That's not the problem. The problem is that due to the DRM, Product Activation, and Palladium technologies built-in to the watch, you can't tell the time to anyone else when you're wearing it...

Proposed Standard?

[medscaper]

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 think you just did...

Excellent things for the work place..

[Gortbusters.org]

I hate paper documents... besides being wasteful of trees, any notes you take normally have to be typed up and recorded for quality purposes (like ISO). Give me a mini-PC or tablet PC anyday.. I'll even sometimes lug around a laptop.

In regards to the MS watch? Who needs that when you carry around a cell phone with the same thing or a PDA with the same thing.

Re:Excellent things for the work place..

[Rhubarb Crumble]

In regards to the MS watch? Who needs that when you carry around a cell phone with the same thing or a PDA with the same thing.

Because it's a lot more convenient to just look at a wrist watch rather than at a PDA - or do you have your PDA strapped to your arm? My cell phone is in my pocket, and I don't want to have to take it out whenever I want to check the time.

Also, my wristwatch is a lot more lightweight than any PDA or cell phone I've ever seen...

Re:Excellent things for the work place..

[Zathrus]

Unless you are a student, wristwatches are wholly unnecessary and a matter of preference

Or if you don't have a cell phone/pager/whatever.

When I was tied to a pager I stopped wearing my wristwatch... it was just as convienent to look at the pager really.

I don't need one now, and I won't carry one by choice. Ditto for a cell phone. Maybe if I could eliminate my land line, but since I have DSL that's not an option.

Somebody at Microsoft is smoking crack to think that people would wear a Microsoft watch

While I wouldn't, and obviously you wouldn't, that doesn't mean nobody would. Frankly, the average Joe doesn't think of MS as an evil corporation since MS does a lot of spin control. A lot of people with more money than sense will see this and think "oooh! Nifty!".

And about a year down the road it'll get piled with the various PDAs and other gizmos that last made them say "oooh! Nifty!".

MS Messagewatch

[Hanno]

If I understand the concept correctly, these watches are only receiving data, not sending. So basically, it's a mini-pager. Is this revolutionary?

Re:MS Messagewatch

[nojomofo]

Does every new product have to be a revolution that ushers in a whole new paradigm and way of life, or is a company allowed to just make a neat gizmo?

Well, a "whole new product concept that was completely incubated by Microsoft Research" would be expected to be a revolution or something, not just a copy of 20 or 30-year-old technology with a watchband on it. I'm also not particularly impressed that it uses FM. Should I be?

MS Watches

[BornInASmallTown]

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.

Attention all Vegas hookers:

[Gizzmonic]

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.

no no

[digitalsushi]

Once bitten, twice shy.

dude i wouldnt worry about you hitting another y2k :D

My GOD!

[uradu]

> Vulcan hopes it will attract mobile computer-users willing to
> pay for wirelessly transmitted movie trailers and other content

Is there no point at which shame kicks in? Who where these people raised by? While I do realize that some people will pay $10 for a movie they don't intend to see just to see an anticipated trailer preceding it, $1500 for trailers seems just a tad over the top. Like there is nothing else well-heeled geeks could do with a wireless computer except watch trailers--TRAILERS, mind you, not movies. Because we certainly couldn't bring ourselves to invite global piracy and the resulting collapse of society by offering actual movies online.

What's the frequency Kenneth?

[prgrmr]

The data will be beamed over FM radio airwaves to the gadgets, wherever they are. Consumers will pay $120 to $300 for the watches and perhaps $99 more a year for the data service.

Once the frequency is know, anyone with a shortwave will be able to pick-up the information. Of course MS could have it sent digitized and encrypted, but how long until that gets hacked? Could this be the precursor to DRM for radio?

Re:Another Microsoft Innovation,

[macshit]

Seriously, this seems another indication that when it comes to consumer products, Microsoft has no clue what people want. The X-Box is still #3 and losing them money, and Bob was an unmitigated disaster. Do they really think that Joe Six-Pack wants and needs something like this?

It's looking more and more like their strategy is simply to try everything, until they eventually succeed (in taking over the world). For a normal company, this would be quick suicide -- but MS has Lots And Lots Of Money.

Gah.

Other Wristwatch failures in history.

[Anand_S]

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!

Market for these Devices?

[webword]

I'm very skeptical of these kinds of devices. For example, how many people really want stock quotes on their watches? Is there real value in that? How is a stock ticker on a watch significantly better than a stock ticker on a PDA or cell phone? Also, beyond the cool factor, how important is atomic time to Joe Sixpack? Let's face it, if it isn't significantly better, then only technogeeks will care about it. It'll die a quick death. But wait, there's more. The other factor is this. Even if the product is significantly better in terms of functionality, if the usability sucks then uptake of the product in the market could be minimal. IMHO there are many strikes against these products becoming mainstream products any time soon.

1. More on usability: webword.com (Disclaimer: This is one of my web sites.)

2. Bell Labs Reports on Progress Towards "Dick Tracy" Watch

3. Check Out a Watch Dick Tracy Would Envy

4. IBM stuffs Linux into "Dick Tracy's watch"

5. A User Interface Toolkit for a Small Screen Device

6. Is Timing Ripe for Wrist PDAs?

It has to be said...

[calags]

The Microsoft Watch - it watches you!!!

Takes A Licking

[scotay]

The MS wristwatch takes a licking and keeps onIRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL *** Address 8012abce has base at 80100000 - tick.exe

Absolutely right

[HEbGb]

You are correct.

While it is possible to create reasonable amounts of bass using a sufficient number of small transducers, the 'real' advantage of big woofers is generally their long throw. A good woofer can have a clean displacement of several millimeters, while these small transducers cannot, without causing extreme distortion.

[The transducers don't use the helix method, as far as I can tell. They look like the same ones used in consumer audio systems by Harman and Creative Labs. The helix stuff is a different technology they're hyping.]

As for all of the 'beaming' claims, it's a load of nonsense. There may be vague lateral effects possible with this, but a phased array has to be much, much larger than the wavelengths its generating to create any substantial beam steering. Quite telling is that there isn't a shread of data available anywhere on their website or published reports.

Traditional "3D Audio" systems are a much better bet - far cheaper, and I'll bet they work as well as this (which isn't saying much).

1Limited is a VC backed company, and do not have any reasonable prospect of becoming profitable. Thus, they have to rely on hype to convince investors to keep propping them up.

802.11a Leaves me Cold, compared to apple Macworld

[goombah99]

Does anyone else find these offerings utterly tepid compared to Apple innovation the day before?

Bill gates announces a recylced idea for a Nerd watch that shows sport scores, headlines. The debut the smartScreen, a 1500$ screen-only that hooks to your compute by wi-fi but cant play movies or mp3s, then they announce that anyone who already bought was is out of luck since that they will be changing the specs to use 802.11a to get better bandwidth for movies. then an oversized so-called "video" ipod that also cant show DVD movies, for more bucks than a ipod.

The only thing I thought was interesting was that they decided to go with 802.11a and not 802.11g
I dont know much about these standards except what Jobs said. 802.11a is dead, because it is not backwards compatible with 802.11b hotspots whereas 802.11g is.

How is it possible that one company can lead the entire market year after year going back all the way to the taming of dynamic memory. While the other company can lead the bussiness world and innovate nothing.