At the CES opening keynote, Bill Gates unveiled SPOT — small personal objects technology. Motto:
“Because who in their right mind would use a free, embeddable, stable OS like Linux for these things?”
Like the Seiko MessageWatch and the various “atomic watches”, Microsoft Watch receives data by radio. Bill was heard to say unintentionally-silly things like “It’s sort of like a pager”, and “These partners have a vision that the watch goes beyond just telling time”. The big question on everyone’s mind was when Microsoft will also be introducing non-magnetic velcro magnets approved for use with Windows Refrigerator.
Norman Weinstein, an analyst with Yeske and Company, summed it up perfectly. When asked whether products like the smart watch will sell, his succinct reply was:
It doesn’t matter.
The only interesting part of the keynote was “Media2Go”, a reference platform designed by Microsoft and Intel. Derivative yet incremental, think “iPod with a 4-inch screen”.
Clearly, Bill is now officially disconnected with the rest of the world. | Microsoft Watch story | News.com story | Reuters story | Wired story