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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?"
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.
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Free your mind.
If I understand the concept correctly, these watches are only receiving data, not sending. So basically, it's a mini-pager. Is this revolutionary?
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You may like my a cappella music
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
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.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
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!
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?
How to Download YouTube Videos
The MS wristwatch takes a licking and keeps onIRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL *** Address 8012abce has base at 80100000 - tick.exe
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.
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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...
KMSMA (WWBD?)