Post by Hera on Oct 15, 2013 11:27:42 GMT -7
A century ago, banker Henry Graves Jr. and industrialist James Ward Packard embarked on a decades-long competition to acquire the watch with the most “complications”—a term used to denote any feature beyond simple time-telling. Their rivalry culminated in the creation of a gold pocket watch known as the Graves Supercomplication, designed and built by the Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe. Its 24 complications included sunrise and sunset times in New York City and a chart of the city’s night sky. Graves paid about $15,000 for the watch in 1933 (roughly $270,000 in today’s money); at auction in 1999, it sold for $11 million.
Many years and countless watch styles later, a different kind of wrist-borne complication battle is heating up. Inspired by the success of smartphones and tablets, and by the ever-more-compact computer chips, sensors, and screens found in these devices, electronics companies hope the smart watch could be the next big thing. Companies including Samsung and Sony, and perhaps also Apple and Google, are rushing to produce these devices, which typically connect wirelessly to a smartphone so that you can see call alerts and message notifications on your wrist.
In theory, smart watches offer a smoother, more natural way of checking information than pulling out a smartphone. The act of glancing at your watch is a commonly accepted social custom, and it’s intriguing that an old form factor could come back to prominence. It’s just that now we want to see more at a glance than simply the time.
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For the complete story:
www.technologyreview.com/review/520236/so-far-smart-watches-are-pretty-dumb/
Many years and countless watch styles later, a different kind of wrist-borne complication battle is heating up. Inspired by the success of smartphones and tablets, and by the ever-more-compact computer chips, sensors, and screens found in these devices, electronics companies hope the smart watch could be the next big thing. Companies including Samsung and Sony, and perhaps also Apple and Google, are rushing to produce these devices, which typically connect wirelessly to a smartphone so that you can see call alerts and message notifications on your wrist.
In theory, smart watches offer a smoother, more natural way of checking information than pulling out a smartphone. The act of glancing at your watch is a commonly accepted social custom, and it’s intriguing that an old form factor could come back to prominence. It’s just that now we want to see more at a glance than simply the time.
-----
For the complete story:
www.technologyreview.com/review/520236/so-far-smart-watches-are-pretty-dumb/