Technically Speaking...

I recently purchased a Fossil Abacus 2006; the newest line of watches based on the Microsoft Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) that allows people to integrate technology into their daily lives with the intention of making organization easier and efficient.

I must say that I do have mixed feelings about the technology after actually using it for the past few days. The watch itself is quite beautiful, and I really like the feel of a bulky watch, I like the substantial feel on my wrist letting me know that its there. I also like the backlighting feature which is reminiscent of the backlighting technology used on monochrome Palm devices in the late 90's (I had the same backlighting on a Palm i705 way back then). What I do not like about the watch is that it is not a widely used or implemented technology, and therefore has definite limitations such only being able to receive a wireless signal in large cities. I also find that the signal is somewhat sporadic, and the watch will only receive data when I am wearing it as the antenna on the inside of the stainless steel bracelet seems to use my body as an amplified antenna for picking up the signal. I had the watch for a few hours before it even found a time signal to set the time, and it took several before it even picked up Microsoft's MSN Direct Signal  to receive the News, Stocks, Weather, and Movie info I had subscribed to. I would have been a bit more satisfied had they at least included something telling me this may happen, then I would not immediately think that the watches wireless radio was malfunctioning in some way. The battery in this model seems to be really great, one day of use only take about 10% of the battery life, and the watch has a nice magnetic charger similar to the MagSafe power adapter on Apple's new MacBook line. I enjoy wearing the watch as it is nice to have time, weather, and movie information all at a glance, but even with the upgrades this model has over previous SPOT watches, I doubt that this will be a technology that will ever catch on for the general consumer. The only way I can conceive that Microsoft could save and expand this technology would be if they were to reintroduce it to the market using public Wi-Fi connections (similar to the Nabatzag Wifi Smart Rabbit) rather than the limited, oneway MSN Directband technology.