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Strap on a `smart' watch!

By Anand Parthasarathy

A choice of smart watch models will be offered by year-end.

Bangalore June 8. If you thought the handheld computer or the mobile phone was as far as one could go in shrinking information — think again. In its quest to reach beyond the confines of personal computers, Microsoft yesterday unveiled its newest technology service: a high tech wristwatch that can deliver instant messages, news, weather bulletins and stock market quotations.

Expected to become available initially in the U.S., in the last quarter of this year, the service called MSN Direct will cost just under $ 10 and will use the FM radio spectrum to send customised information using its MSN Messenger format to those sporting a "Smart Watch". Models are initially being offered by makers such as Fossil, Suunto and Phillipe Stack at prices around the equivalent of Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 7,000: which is what many international watches in India already cost. National Semiconductor has developed a special micro-chip to e-nable the wrist watches. In future, the watches may be offered free to those who sign up for long-term subscriptions to MSN Direct.

The Smart Watch is part of Microsoft's new thrust: SPOT or Smart Personal Objects Technology, whereby information over FM can be sent to common objects such as refrigerators, microwave ovens, cars and alarm clocks. It differs from wireless Internet-enabled pocket PCs and mobile phones in one crucial respect: it can receive information but cannot send replies. But Microsoft seems to be banking on acceptance by the world's `dummies' majority which is intimated by current Internet access technologies and feels comfortable with an old-fashioned device such as the wristwatch. A similar initiative by Seiko in the mid 1990s failed to take off. Since then, watch batteries pack in much more power, radio networks are denser — and Microsoft has the staying power to wait till its products catch the public's fancy.

Will you see smart watches in India? Not tomorrow at any rate: Not till special frequency allocations are made to service providers, within the FM spectrum which is now reserved for local radio.

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