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Friday, January 10, 2003
Posted by Roberto
2:30 PM 0 comments

SPOT: SMART PERSONAL OBJECTS TECHNOLOGY

Bill Gates announced on Wednesday that Microsoft is mounting a new push to move beyond personal computers into everyday objects using a technology Microsoft calls SPOT. SPOT-enabled watches and everyday objects such as refrigerator magnets will carry software that will allow them to display snippets of information, such as an upcoming appointment, phone numbers and weather forecasts.

The market potential is there: The global watchmaking industry churns out about a billion watches a year, or one for every six people on earth. "If we get five percent or 10 percent of people who have watches, it's a huge, huge number," Microsoft's Gates told Reuters in an interview. Middlebury, Connecticut-based Timex already sells a watch called Data Link that works with Microsoft software to retrieve scheduling and contacts information from a personal computer. Data Link works by having a special sensor on the watch read flashing bars of light on a computer monitor, much like Morse code transmitted at a distance with light signals. Microsoft announced that it was developing watches with Japan's Citizen Watch Co. Ltd. -- one of only three large global timepiece makers already selling radio-controlled clocks -- and U.S. watchmaker Fossil Inc. Microsoft plans to have its watches receive data over FM radio spectrum that it leases, a system it calls DirectBand. The watches could start at $150 and would also have features such as automatic updating from an atomic clock.

Casio's view on the MSFT announcement: Japan's Casio Computer Co Ltd., the world's top maker of digital timepieces, said "smart" watches are nothing new. The maker of the shock-resistant "G-Shock" watch and its fashionable, younger sibling the "Baby-G" said it first introduced the radio-controlled wrist watch in 1996 and plans to sell over one million "Wave-ceptor" watches this year.

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