My apologies. I was too lazy to click the link and assumed it would show a waterproof Android 'phone' (as in, the form factor).
Although it looks pretty good (and rugged), it will suffer from the same issues as a lot of the other current implementations: meager battery life (I don't believe you will effectively come close to the quoted 100h) and bad readability outdoors.
Yes. With your watch, which doesn't require a zipper pocket on your swimming suit (good luck with that, ladies) or constant paranoid checking whether it has slid out of your pockets. That was kind of my point.
I said easier. Ever tried to use a smartphone in the winter? It is not easier than 'tug glove down, [pull up three layers at once instead of doing that in an inane way to try to make your list longer], [look at watch]'.
So now you have this PITA "smartwatch" with a sub-day battery life (great, so you forget to charge it and you're hooped).
This is (part of) my original point. The current implementations suck. Watches / wearables need to be as carefree as possible. Slap them on and forget about them until you need their functionality. At some point, never having to change the battery in your watch became a successful selling point: http://www.seikowatches.com/world/technology/kinetic/index.html There is a reason why being waterproof is another main selling point of some watches. Or highly scratch resistant sapphire glass. That reason can be summed up with one word: carefree.
Imagine this: a virtually unbreakable, waterproof, light, slim smart watch that uses energy harvesting or requires charging maybe once every two weeks. I would buy the shit out of that.
I would even if it only does notifications and tell time. Imagine being able to use it as a navigation tool. Not in your car. But walking around, or on a bicycle. Or as an NFC device to get information on products in a store. Or as a device for tracking workouts, or supplying information during running. You could say that a phone can do all those things too, but it can only do so in a much less convenient way. Remember belt cases for phones? For easy access? They looked (and look) terrible, but the simple fact that there was and is a use for them is enough to see the smartwatch as a viable product.
It's not a 'fun article'. It's drivel: "only 19% of American adults bought a watch in 2011. Meanwhile, the number of adults owning cell phones is at 90 percent." Comparing percentages of ownership and purchases is beyond retarded. I'm going to assume you are not and that the previous says enough.
BTW, just speaking for myself
Exactly.
I take my cellphone in a ziploc bag. I even take it in the ocean briefly, so I can take cool pictures. If I have a containment failure and the phone dies, oh well... time for a new phone.
That is super-fucking-convenient! How could anybody want to go about this differently??
Specifically to the wristwatch: this device has more or less ceased to fill its original segment of "functional timekeeping, optionally alarm-playing device that's always with you because it's on your wrist" - that functionality is filled by the cellphone, which is also always with you and has a lot more functionality.
No, it hasn't and no, it isn't. Rotating your arm slightly is still much easier than pulling something out of your pants, unlocking/waking it and putting it back in again. I never do the latter to check the time. Because I have a fucking watch.
In addition to a wrist being a much more accessible location, the idea of something wearable instead of something you carry is that you don't have to worry about losing it or where to put it. Tell me: do you go swimming with your cell phone? Even if it was water proof, you very probably wouldn't.
Wearable personal computing devices make complete sense. The current implementations are just not very good.
I could have chosen any of the other first twenty hits on Google search. The only other one you could have chosen is a Youtube video of The Big Bang Theory on which even Youtube commenters (AKA: the lowest forms of life) understand that you're really stretching it here.
All the jokes C3P0 made during the first film was unbearable to me, more so than Jar Jar Binks.
I understand why you posted as AC.
As for the rest of your comment: I can only advise you to watch the hilarious and spot-on review of The Phantom Menace by 'Harry Plinkett': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI
It's a more rewarding watch than any of episodes 1 to 3 and will leave you with a greater understanding of movies in general.
Finally: when it comes to 'quality', proper framerate matching is way more noticeable than spatial resolution of the video. Using CTRL+J in MPC-HC or MPC-BE (using the Custom EVR or madVR) helps getting addictively good results.
True. I've set the (useless) scroll button horizontal tilt actions of my mouse to 'middle click', because the actual middle click is completely unusable. Only downside: I've become so used to it, that I forget that it doesn't work on other mice.
I get your point. I was inspecting my own phone to see whether there were usable prints on it and what the best place to look for them would be. Then I realized that on a phone with a fingerprint scanner, the best place to look for usable prints would be on the fingerprint scanner (/home button!).
I guess the best approach would then be to use the fingerprints on the fingers that you use the least for operating the device, like the ones from your ring finger.
This is a good point. A malicious colleague or classmate could extract your fingerprints at some time and then be able to unlock all your future (fingerprint scanning) devices without you ever knowing.
I'm not sure whether that trumps the daily annoyance of having to be secretive about entering passcodes or patterns, though. As stressed many times here, it's not meant to hold up to people with a long-term intent of breaking in to your device, but more to 'friends' who could easily sneak a peek at private messages.
Depends on the pattern. If you use a pattern that resembles the normal swiping gestures, or the more complex solution of patterns (almost) repeating on themselves, the smudges attack vector becomes pretty useless.
It's pretty early to be calling it, but the technically extremely simple home button apparently stops functioning properly more than seldom. Googling 'broken home button' provides some evidence for that.
Just the fact alone that dirt could enter through the home button should raise the concern that the fingerprint scanner could be affected.
Still beats no passcode at all against a casual attacker
Also beats pattern or password unlocks, which can be 'beaten' by just a bit of careful spying.
To me, the only things that are of real concern with this technology are false negatives and durability (I'm pretty sure putting the scanner on the home button is going to end up being a bad idea).
Slashdot Mirror
My apologies. I was too lazy to click the link and assumed it would show a waterproof Android 'phone' (as in, the form factor).
Although it looks pretty good (and rugged), it will suffer from the same issues as a lot of the other current implementations: meager battery life (I don't believe you will effectively come close to the quoted 100h) and bad readability outdoors.
Yes. With your watch, which doesn't require a zipper pocket on your swimming suit (good luck with that, ladies) or constant paranoid checking whether it has slid out of your pockets. That was kind of my point.
Don't be so obtuse.
I said easier. Ever tried to use a smartphone in the winter? It is not easier than 'tug glove down, [pull up three layers at once instead of doing that in an inane way to try to make your list longer], [look at watch]'.
So now you have this PITA "smartwatch" with a sub-day battery life (great, so you forget to charge it and you're hooped).
This is (part of) my original point. The current implementations suck.
Watches / wearables need to be as carefree as possible. Slap them on and forget about them until you need their functionality.
At some point, never having to change the battery in your watch became a successful selling point: http://www.seikowatches.com/world/technology/kinetic/index.html
There is a reason why being waterproof is another main selling point of some watches. Or highly scratch resistant sapphire glass.
That reason can be summed up with one word: carefree.
Imagine this: a virtually unbreakable, waterproof, light, slim smart watch that uses energy harvesting or requires charging maybe once every two weeks. I would buy the shit out of that.
I would even if it only does notifications and tell time. Imagine being able to use it as a navigation tool. Not in your car. But walking around, or on a bicycle. Or as an NFC device to get information on products in a store. Or as a device for tracking workouts, or supplying information during running.
You could say that a phone can do all those things too, but it can only do so in a much less convenient way. Remember belt cases for phones? For easy access?
They looked (and look) terrible, but the simple fact that there was and is a use for them is enough to see the smartwatch as a viable product.
It's not a 'fun article'. It's drivel:
"only 19% of American adults bought a watch in 2011. Meanwhile, the number of adults owning cell phones is at 90 percent."
Comparing percentages of ownership and purchases is beyond retarded. I'm going to assume you are not and that the previous says enough.
BTW, just speaking for myself
Exactly.
I take my cellphone in a ziploc bag. I even take it in the ocean briefly, so I can take cool pictures. If I have a containment failure and the phone dies, oh well... time for a new phone.
That is super-fucking-convenient! How could anybody want to go about this differently??
Finally, I concur with my AC sibling.
"Even if it was water proof, you very probably wouldn't."
Specifically to the wristwatch: this device has more or less ceased to fill its original segment of "functional timekeeping, optionally alarm-playing device that's always with you because it's on your wrist" - that functionality is filled by the cellphone, which is also always with you and has a lot more functionality.
No, it hasn't and no, it isn't.
Rotating your arm slightly is still much easier than pulling something out of your pants, unlocking/waking it and putting it back in again. I never do the latter to check the time. Because I have a fucking watch.
In addition to a wrist being a much more accessible location, the idea of something wearable instead of something you carry is that you don't have to worry about losing it or where to put it. Tell me: do you go swimming with your cell phone? Even if it was water proof, you very probably wouldn't.
Wearable personal computing devices make complete sense. The current implementations are just not very good.
Sure. Let's just pretend that's true.
I could have chosen any of the other first twenty hits on Google search. The only other one you could have chosen is a Youtube video of The Big Bang Theory on which even Youtube commenters (AKA: the lowest forms of life) understand that you're really stretching it here.
Written idiocy like: using big words you think denote a fallacy but really don't.
So.. I guess you proved your point?
You could have just quoted Lisa Simpson (S07E23): http://blogs.hbr.org/2008/08/innovation-lessons-from-lisas/
You have a terrible sense of humor, a mediocre grasp of grammar and an adolescent approach to discussions. Good luck with that.
Do you think you're the only one who thinks it's funny when such a post is moderated Informative?
Here's your sign.
All the jokes C3P0 made during the first film was unbearable to me, more so than Jar Jar Binks.
I understand why you posted as AC.
As for the rest of your comment: I can only advise you to watch the hilarious and spot-on review of The Phantom Menace by 'Harry Plinkett':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI
It's a more rewarding watch than any of episodes 1 to 3 and will leave you with a greater understanding of movies in general.
You should try MPC-BE: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcbe/
It's a fork of MPC-HC and it has thumbnail previews while seeking (like Youtube).
Also: 'codec packs'?
ffdshow-tryouts: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/
and/or LAV: https://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/
There hasn't been the need for anything else for years.
Finally: when it comes to 'quality', proper framerate matching is way more noticeable than spatial resolution of the video. Using CTRL+J in MPC-HC or MPC-BE (using the Custom EVR or madVR) helps getting addictively good results.
True. I've set the (useless) scroll button horizontal tilt actions of my mouse to 'middle click', because the actual middle click is completely unusable.
Only downside: I've become so used to it, that I forget that it doesn't work on other mice.
Yet apparently it does in the current models.
I get your point. I was inspecting my own phone to see whether there were usable prints on it and what the best place to look for them would be.
Then I realized that on a phone with a fingerprint scanner, the best place to look for usable prints would be on the fingerprint scanner (/home button!).
I guess the best approach would then be to use the fingerprints on the fingers that you use the least for operating the device, like the ones from your ring finger.
This is a good point. A malicious colleague or classmate could extract your fingerprints at some time and then be able to unlock all your future (fingerprint scanning) devices without you ever knowing.
I'm not sure whether that trumps the daily annoyance of having to be secretive about entering passcodes or patterns, though. As stressed many times here, it's not meant to hold up to people with a long-term intent of breaking in to your device, but more to 'friends' who could easily sneak a peek at private messages.
Depends on the pattern. If you use a pattern that resembles the normal swiping gestures, or the more complex solution of patterns (almost) repeating on themselves, the smudges attack vector becomes pretty useless.
Zoom. Lens.
It's pretty early to be calling it, but the technically extremely simple home button apparently stops functioning properly more than seldom. Googling 'broken home button' provides some evidence for that.
Just the fact alone that dirt could enter through the home button should raise the concern that the fingerprint scanner could be affected.
Sure, for people who only ever unlock their phone in their parent's basement, it is.
Still beats no passcode at all against a casual attacker
Also beats pattern or password unlocks, which can be 'beaten' by just a bit of careful spying.
To me, the only things that are of real concern with this technology are false negatives and durability (I'm pretty sure putting the scanner on the home button is going to end up being a bad idea).
That is a very gentleman-like response.
I salute you, good sir!
(no sarcasm!)