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.