Google Reportedly Making a Smartwatch, Too

judgecorp writes "With Samsung and (reportedly) Apple already making smartwatches, Google has now joined the party, according to a (paywalled) report in the Financial Times. The Google Watch is apparently being made by the Android group, and could have some synergy with Google's other wearable tech — the Glass spectacles. The distinctive thing in Google's patent seems to be having two displays — one for public data and a flip-up one for more private stuff."

Re:Tyranny of Age

[alen]

imagine the watch is a bike computer, the nike fuelband or fitbit thingy where it tracks how much you walk, your heart rate, pulse, maybe even add blood sugar

its for people who like to go outside and breath fresh air and not the basement dwellers who are always rooting or ROMing their phones

Re:The average Slashdotter . . .

[Cenan]

Fanbois are abundant in every camp. Smartwatches remains idiotic.

Re:Tyranny of Age

[jovius]

I don't really think so. Satellite devices like watches and glasses are the next layer of abstraction for smart phones, which have become so big and powerful. Basically you could just carry the cpu or a connectivity component (cpu power can too be shared), and wear yourself with various screens and other paraphernalia to make the device whole. The ubiquitous computing is steadily moving forward.

Re:creepshot

[Quakeulf]

You know there is a lot of energy to be harnessed kinetically by rapid repeated forearm motions caused by the creepshots and the virtual naked filter...

is there just NO originality anymore?

[v1]

"Look, someone's making a touchscreen phone, quick, lets make one too!"

"Look, someone's making a touch tablet, quick, lets make one too!"

"Look, someone's making a smart watch, quick, lets make one too!"

OK this is getting sickening, you can stop now.

Re:Barbra Streisand Effect?

[c]

Once that happened, no one wanted to let Apple get the upper hand and so started making their own watch, to which Apple said, hey, we need an iWatch too!

It's not exactly rocket science.

The interest in the Pebble shows there's a market. Sony's had a smartwatch out for quite a while, although apparently while it's great when it works, their software is buggy as hell. Too bad, because they jumped in early enough that they could have owned the market.

The trend towards larger and larger phones means that the whip-out-ability of the average smartphone has been rapidly dropping, to the point where pulling out your phone to check the time isn't even close to handy or discrete. On top of that, with always-on connectivity and a boatload of online services, the notification/interruption rates are increasing.

So there's arguably a place for a small, always visible "front end" that allows the phablet to live in a pocket or purse until the larger display is needed.

Re:This just in, Google reportedly makes everythin

[fluffman86]

An RSS reader?

Re:is there just NO originality anymore?

[Dragonslicer]

If Apple "announces" a new product coming out in three months, and the following week Samsung and Google announce that they have a competing product coming out in three months, do people really believe that they are all just trying to copy Apple? Product development just doesn't happen that quickly.

Re:Watch!

[ByOhTek]

Nope. Sucked when Apple did it. Sucked even more when Samsung decided to do it. Continues to suck with Google, and when Microsoft jumps on this overcrowded, watch-sized bandwagon... it will STILL suck.