Monday, October 27, 2003

World's Best Watches


Watchmaking is one of the most subtle blends of skill and art in technology and design.

Websites of the world's leading watchmakers generally maintain the same quality we find in their respective watches.
Here are some that we have selected. Some of these websites are truly "works of art" like the finest watches.

Rolex
Patek Philippe
Cartier
Breitling
Tag Heuer
Ebel
Audemars Piguet
Chopard
Chaumet
Blancpain
Breguet
Vacheron Constantin
IWC
Omega
Jaeger LeCoultre
Girard-Perregaux Ferrari Watch
Ulysse-Nardin
Baume & Mercier
A. Lange & Soehne
Bulgari
Piaget
Rado
Tissot
De Grisogono
Alain Silberstein
Wempe - Overview

Thursday, October 23, 2003

SPOT wristwatches


Via the Feed Room, the website vnu.net.com in an article by Robert Jaques entitled Microsoft watches are Spot on informs us about a coming new technology, SPOT, which is an acronym for Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT).

As written by Jaques, SPOT "will allow information including appointments, calendar, contact phone numbers and weather forecasts to be beamed to small personal devices over FM radio".

Such personal devices are wristwatches and media players although the technology can also be implemented into something as mundane as a refrigertor door magnet.

Jaques reports that Microsoft will soon be bringing such watches onto the market and FeedRoom.com reported that this will probably already be in November of this year. The watches - apparently first to be offered commercially through watchmakers Citizen, Fossil and Suunto - will retail for about $150-300 and will essentially be a mini-screen on the user's wrist.

In order to provide the user with content, Microsoft has launched a wireless wristwatch service called MSN Direct, which will run on watches using SPOT technology on an FM-radio-based network.

Instant messages, data on personal computers and Microsoft Outlook information will be accessible.
MSN Direct will cost something near to $10 a month or ca. $60 a year.

Other detailed accounts of the SPOT technology are found e.g. at Microsoft (with watch pictures), Business World India, and Mobile Mag.

Saturday, October 18, 2003

First Omega Moon Watch Rediscovered?


This "watch" posting is made in reference to an article of the Washington Post online on the subject of Moon Watch Resurfaces:

Based on that article,
"Moon Watch Resurfaces In Court - Astronaut, Smithsonian, Collector Claim Rights To Lost Timepiece", by Jacqueline Trescott, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, October 17, 2003; Page C01,

it now appears that Astronaut Buzz Aldrin's Omega "Moon Watch" - the first watch on the Moon - may have been "stolen" while on its way to the Smithsonian Institute and has now turned up in the hands of what appears to be a bona fide purchaser (more facts will probably be forthcoming on this issue).