Friday, May 23, 2008

LESS FUNCTION, MORE FASHION

As the ubiquity of cellphones continues to grow, wristwatches are becoming less about function and more about luxury, style and fashion. The luxury watchmaking industry has embraced this change with open arms, as their paradigm has always been informed by the idea that a watch is not something that you use to check the time--it is a work of art.

However, there are those who see a re-surgence in function on the horizon. Daniel Ashbrook, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech, is convinced of it. His idea, though it is years from implementation, is create a wristwatch peripheral, much like a bluetooth earpiece, that will allow watch, cellphone and computer to all interact seamlessly so that you can check more than the time on your wrist: you could also see the weather, a stock market report or glance at your wrist to check your caller ID.

Source article: http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/stories/2008/05/16/watch_0518.html