15 minutes up for Microsoft SPOT watches
Thu Apr 24, 2008 4:57PM EDT
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You wanted your wristwatch to give you news, weather, and stock quotes? Sorry, Dick Tracy, Microsoft's SPOT watch, which has endured a rocky five years of ridicule and minimal sales, has finally been put out of its misery.
SPOT ("Smart Personal Objects Technology") was essentially a PDA you could wear on your wrist. But wait, there was more: Using FM radio waves, a SPOT watch could access data feeds from MSN Direct. You configured the watch online, setting what cities you want the weather report for, what stocks to watch, what sports teams to follow, and updates were automatically delivered to your arm as they happened. Too bad service initially cost up to $9.95 a month and the watches ran $150 or $200, making them a little pricey for something that amounted to a novelty. Style varied greatly from vendor to vendor, but most of the watches were on the chunky side.
The watches never caught on for a variety of reasons (battery life was often just two or three days, for example), but it's clear that increasing data capabilities of cell phones are what finally sunk the technology. Even a relatively simple phone can now do everything SPOT could do as long as you have a basic data plan. SPOT ultimately seems to have fallen prey to the "am I really going to carry yet another gadget?" dilemma that many technophiles now face.
Still, Microsoft had a clever idea in using FM radio to broadcast information on a national scale, and people have long been obsessed with doing something interesting with their watches. (Cell phone watches and TV watches continue to show up in the way back booths of CES and CTIA.) SPOT wasn't a bad idea, it just never quite did enough to merit serious interest.
We'll miss you, SPOT! For a trip down memory lane, check out Cnet's eulogy for SPOT, including an old video review of one of the first SPOT watches by none other than original Yahoo! Tech founder (then Editor in Chief of Cnet) Pat Houston.
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Comments on 15 minutes up for Microsoft SPOT watches
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2 Posted by gomakemeasandwich on Fri Apr 25, 2008 7:37PM EDT Report Abuse
That chick in the middle is hot.
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3 Posted by gomakemeasandwich on Fri Apr 25, 2008 7:37PM EDT Report Abuse
That chick in the middle is hot.
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4 Posted by seveprim on Mon Apr 28, 2008 5:03PM EDT Report Abuse
The "watch" is dead obsolete, they have been for a good 15 yrs , why, mobiles have taken that role, heck I dont even bother with an alarm clock , phone does that too... sooner later the phone will take over notebook, just think they already developed the projection screen (ie project video onto wall) for phone and you can already get laser vitual keyboard, so just a matter of time before it is all placed into a phone and battery technology to power the greedy thing ..lol
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1 Posted by marklikesmoney on Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:12AM EDT Report Abuse
Opps, I must have been out of town during this 15 minute timespan. The Microsoft Marketing Machine hits me with more e-mail than any other entity. Perhaps our friends at Microsoft development forgot to tell the marketing folks about this product.