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Palm OS Wristwatch
countach writes "Amazon are taking orders for a new Palm OS Wrist Watch. It has an infra-red port, touch screen, back-light, stylus and 2MB of RAM. Price is $US 295.00." Because sometimes you don't look nerdy enough ;)
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I already have a dandy of a time just keeping the crystal of my little Seiko from getting scratched up, how am I gonna manage to keep a touch screen safe on my wrist? Not to mention incidental pushing of the on-screen buttons. I know these are relativly logistical concerns, but these things could prove annoying...
Am I the only one that remembered them quoting $149 for this watch back last fall when slashdot did the original story on it?
It could simply have been a mixup on the part of whoever submitted the story, since their old pda watches (non-Palm) were $149, but still, I got my hopes up until I saw the $300 price tag.
How can Palm make a Wrist product? They should prolly change the name of the OS to Wrist OS or something...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
... when they do the Pulp Fiction remake in 5 years.
Just imagine the scene between the army dad and the dead guy's son - "I kept this watch up my ass for 5 years - and I have the photos to prove it!".
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00009QR9X.01.LZ ZZZZZZ.jpg
Would you wear one of these? Its huge and the screen looks like it escaped from the 1980's.
There have been watches that allow syncing with PIMs for years (equally ugly). The MS SPOT watches look more interesting with their GRPS internet connectivity.
In this day and age they could have used OLED technology to make the face colour and themeable, so you could download nice different facias off the net when you felt like a change.
There is no god
I have a Palm and I love it. However, when I use it, I rarely think to myself "if only I could be holding my arm awkwardly up to my face right now, life would be perfect". Likewise, it is only infrequently that I moan over how much extra screen real estate my Palm has. Since these two things seem to be the only problems that the Palm Watch solves, why would I want to spend $300 on it?
While I'm usually an all-out advocate of PalmOS and am generally happy to see new and different offerings, I can't help but think that this is a bad idea.
First, the reviews I've seen (based on earlier versions) showed this to be really big and clunky. I know it can be hip to be square, but this might be pushing the limits a bit.
It's pretty expensive, especially considering what you can get in a full-out PDA for the price.
It will take a little getting used to for regular Palm users, as it deviates a little bit from some of the standard interface widgets (no icons for "home," for example -- you just "back out" of whatever program you're in). Plus, it'll be tough to do many things on such a small screen (but, again, this is a new approach).
Finally, from what I've read (including on the Fossil site), it won't synchronize directly with a computer. You have to load up special software on an existing Palm, and then use that software to sync selected data from your handheld to the watch (via IR). I suppose that someone might be able to hack together a CPU-based IR sync system, but that should be standard equipment.
I'll be interested to see where this goes, but I'm frankly a little disappointed, especially with regards to synchronization -- I think that'll be the biggest complaint (right before how big the thing is).
Is this watch waterproof? The screen is touch-screen, but where do you put the stylus? Does it have a stylus? I hate to loose the stylus underwater.
There is nothing like checking my list of contacts and to-do list (never know when you need reminding of stopping by at the local hardware store after a day of underwater welding) and picking up a few daily necessities, like some Doritos...mmmmm.
Fossil licensed this technology, but Abacus makes a cheaper version for $179. Not quite as cool looking, but quite a bit less money to shell out.
From the specs:
So, in other words, it has a 2-hr battery. So much for using it on a long road trip. Do they expect me to plug it into a cigarette lighter? I can just see the headline now:
DUMBASS CRASHES CAR
Keeps watch on during recharging; can't turn left.
It's not really a Palm if you wear it on your wrist!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
No way I'm getting one of these. The screen is just way too large. I'm holding out for the Palm OS Pinky Ring.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
So you are saying that you can't understand math if you use a calculator?
Nope. I say that the learning process is better if you learn how to do it first without a calculator.
I would say that it would be easier to learn, or at least grade math when calculators are used.
And I'd say (snarkily) that you've never taught math.
Think about it; if what you are really after is getting your students to understand the concepts, then why dissallow calculators that prevent them from getting incorrect answers from arithmatic errors ('oops, forgot to carry the 2' or some shit).
The point of learning something is to master it. In the grand scheme of things learning the fundamentals of math and futzing up an answer here or there due to an arithmetic error is exponentially better than *not* knowing fundaments and relying on your calculator for everything. Teaching math also means teaching how to think logically, how to understand the underlying principals so you can apply them to other situations than the ones presented in your homework.
For instance I also taught calculus. Whole chapters were devoted to graphing equations using maxima, minima and inflection points. Now, some kids wanted to use their graphing calculator to come up with the answers (and undoubtedly did when they did their homework), but they screwed themselves in the long run. Why? Because the point of graphing 40 equations wasn't to make pretty pictures, it was to drill the student in taking first and second derivatives, finding local maxima and minima, etc. Those who took the easy way out using their calculators were royally fucked when in the next section you had to apply those newly taught skills to solve minimization problems.