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Technology

MP3 Player in a Watch 148

Posted by emmett from the i've-finally-caught-up-with-dick-tracy dept.
Myriad writes "Casio has announced a new wristwatch that doubles as a MP3 player. Set to begin shipping in summer, it will initially be available in 16, 32, and 64MB versions. All versions use a built in USB port for transfer. Another new watch sports a built in 120x120 16-grayscale digital camera and LCD display. It uses an infrared port for communication, and can store 100 images. Click here for the rundown with picture from ZDNet, or here for all the specs from Casio."
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MP3 Player in a Watch More

MP3 Player in a Watch

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  • ..because you're not the target audience. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Empeg is for geeks who've got to have the latest, coolest thing right now and don't care how much it costs. $1000 is chicken scratch for something like this. What else is like it? No Amp? Big deal, most people (who they're targeting) already have an amp. Closed system? Only if you don't want to void your warranty. So order the big hard drive to begin with & don't cheap out. Or, if you're a big shot, open it up..screw the warranty you're a techie, right? :)

    Complain all you want, but I think it's hot poop..

  • So close and yet so far (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When I first saw this on the main page, I said "oh my god, this will kick ass".... then the picture loaded.

    Ugh. Think about the implications for routing headphone wires from your wrist all the way to your head. It's bad enough going from your beltline up to your head with a typical Walkman, but ON YOUR ARM?

    Memo to Casio: invent the Human Bus. MP3/whatever player on the belt, watch on the arm, no wires linking them, but the watch is the controller. Why? So you can control something that's easily accessible (it's on your wrist) rather than fumbling around blindly at something on your belt.
    Also, something on your belt could be a lot bigger and heavier (look at pagers/cellphones) as compared to something on the end of your arm.

    It could probably use some very low power RF to actually do the watch to belt comms, possibly using the wearer as the conduit. Ideas, ideas...
  • Another favorite saying about the speaker company everyone loves to hate.

    Bose: Better sound through marketing.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • I don't want one. This most defiantly doesn't Rock. In fact it sucks so hard I could use a Win modem and be less upset.

    Wait a minute, This is Slashdot ? You mean the place where people like me don't have to lie about our secret longings and perverted lusts ?

    Gimy my MP3 watch NOW. GimyGimyGimy and I don't even care how many songs it holds :)
  • Why don't they combine them all into one uber-gadget that you wearlike a bracer. That way, not only do you have all your toys, you also have AC +1 on one arm!

    Actually, bracers don't give you a +1 AC, they give you a specific AC, e.g. Bracers of Defense AC 6.

    --

  • "What picture?", I asked myself. I went to take a look and noticed the "Downloadable Images" heading. Below it, I saw three links... to TIFF images. WTF? Haven't these people heard of JPEG? I'm still waiting for the damn thing to download.
    --
  • re-read the rules for armor. or maybe you think a suit of plate is useless unless its magical. I should be able to quote you the exact page and such, but all my books (except book of humaniods) are beyond arms reach.
  • At $1000+ a pop I think they were marketting this more towards the high end and "extreme" car audio enthusiast. Or at the very least people with a relatively high amount of disposable income. This same market segment is likely to already have amplifiers, signal processors, etc in their installations. And if they don't, what's another $200 for an amp? What is really odd is that this same market segment is also the group of people that will almost definitely hear the mp3 artifacts (or at least claim to) and would more than likely not want to have an "inferior" sound quality source device in their setups. So I wonder what the point of marketting to this segment was in the first place.
  • Problem is that this was supposed to be a consumer device. I don't remember who did the research but to my knowledge, the research has shown that in order for a consumer device to be popular it has to be in $200 range. Just because some crap player costs $200 for 32Mb, doesnt mean a 4Gb version based on completely different technology should cost linearly more.

    For $1000 they can listen to that thing themselves. I would be better off buying a laptop with more HDD space for my car usage. I would also be able to do something useful when being in a road jam. I believe this is a very bad judgement on this company's part. Obviously they want to capitalize on being the first, but this may cost them their advantage. If I were them I would sell as much units as possible for whatever price they can afford to be profitable. It will go down soon anyway.
  • I mean, either you carry around the watch or you carry around the Palm...but never both

    In short you are wrong. I don't know how about you but I carry my watches ALWAYS with me, and I believe most people do. At least when comparing to any gadget, your watches are always with you. Do you check your time on Palm? Now, given that, it actually makes sense to built-in as many gadgets as possible in watches, that you carry always with you, which is good for Casio, they are in watches business, not Palm-pilots. The other issue is that because watches are so small, you will probably won't be able to write a perl program (at least till voice-dictation become feasible for these devices), but you can do some stuff and later sync with your palm.
  • I love MODs, S3Ms myself and was listening to them since 1992. However, as you know they are very limited and there is no way you can have a decent song (with words) without making them big. It is possible to probably have any song in them, but they store samples in a very poorly compressed state, and thus make this format not feasible for music. Now, there are some great MODs around, and I still listen to them, but would not you prefer listening to all new music too? And also would not you like to listen to music YOU LIKE, not waiting for someone to make up a poorly cloned MOD? Obviously not, thus the format is basically dead, and soon few people would still remember it. No wonder that MOD4WIN (www.mod4win.com) canned their development a while ago. Luckily we still got a few players around so we can listen to that great music in MODs.
  • That it's a camera disguised in a watch so you can sneak it in places. That a LOT worse than anything Ramsey advertised thier cameras for and look at the fun their having now.

    But I think Casio is a bit more than they have the political clout to bully about this kind of thing. Could create too much bad press.

    Sorry, I'm just still bitter that I'm going to have to handbuild a transmitter for my next project now that I can't wimp out and buy a 'cube'.

  • I think wired headphones would suck, for all the reasons everyone else is giving -- they catch on things, they're potentially dangerous, etc. Obviously, speakers are not an option. I think this would be a great use for radio or infrared headphones. I know these exist for listening around the house. I haven't seen them advertised recently, but definitely, it's the thing to do.
  • Why would they stop when you stopped? Nike doesn't care if you're healthy. From the user's point of view, it would just be irritating. You would get free power with piezoelectrics, and just store the energy in a battery for when you were stopped.
  • There have been stories posted on slashdot before about CD players that will play data CDs with MP3s. This would be completely awesome, but it seems that these products never made it. Is this product ever going to be a reality?

    Here is a /. reference.
    http://slashdot.org/articles/99/03/16/100223.sht ml
  • And as far as the MP3 watch goes, I don't understand the point of having rechargeable batteries. I have owned Casio watches for years, and the main reason I buy the waterproof ones is so I never have to take it off. If I have to take the MP3 watch off my wrist every night to recharge the batteries, then I'm going to be walking around my house staring at the blank wrist where my watch is supposed to be.

    I take my watch off every night, and put it down with my keys and wallet and such. So I don't think putting a rechargable battery in a watch is stupid at all.

    The part I don't understand is how they think that people are going to be happy with headphone wire going from their wrist to their heads...it sounds like numerous accidents waiting to happen. Maybe if one strung the wire through one's sleeve, keeping it under one's shirt, then it could work. But that sounds kinda uncomfortable...

    Felix

  • Palm already has a cell-phone. Qualcomm makes a phone that runs PalmOS and runs Palm-apps, it's called the pdQ smartphone.

    Check it out here. [qualcomm.com]

    Cheers.
  • hey fuck you stupid asshole
    what the HELL are you talking about
  • What is it with all you dumbasses who are bitching that this would suck because you'd have to have a wire coming from your wrist ?! HELLO? Do the laws of physics demand it be worn on a wrist? For satan's sake if the wire gets in the way put it elsewhere.. Down your shirt into your pocket, or on your belt or whatever. You are all so brilliantly creative, you couldnt think of a solution like that on your own ? And especially I would like to beat the living hell out of the retard who thought that the small 'speakers' on this watch would suck for his shitty ass rap music. The jackass obviously didnt even read the fucking article, yet he wastes our precious time by posting his fucking idiotic uninformed bullshit.

    Special Note to : *slashdot lamers* all the ones who comment without reading the article or having any idea what they are talking about MAKE ME SICK. And I'd like to beat you all to death.
  • Why is this a 5? Sounds more like a troll to me, I think this is a great idea and I'm planning on getting one. Besides you aren't supposed to listen to it with speakers, you're supposed to use headphones. And why the hell are you listening to rap?
  • When my beloved Casio ATC-1200 altimiter watch died, I stopped wearing a watch - then I got a Plam V. The Palm V is small enough to carry all the time (except when you're swimming - where's my waterproof depth measuring Palm?) and inside the Hard Case [modusmedia.com] it is nearly indestructable. So, now when I want to know the time, I do check my Palm.
  • I, like the rest of you, love small gadgets. My cell phone weighs 4 oz. my laptop 4 pounds, my rio next to nothing, etc etc etc. My question is this. At what point do things become so small that using them is to difficult? Case in point, Sprint PCS wireless web phones. I have personally not used them, but I have heard that using the web on them is a joke because it is so damn small. I have used cell phones where the buttons are so damn small you can't hit one at a time. I understand the necessity of nano research, and think all of these invntions/gadgets are great, but at some point all functionality is lost because the gadget is too small!!
    J

  • I don't know if they left off the internal amp so much as to save money or to be more like a competition deck with 2 sets of RCA outs.

    From what I recall reading on www.empeg.com [empeg.com] and from viewing the pictures, the real reason is simply that they ran out of room in the case.

    Certainly from the pictures they ha[ve|d] on the site, it's easy to see how a power amp & heatsink can't sit in close proximity to the m/board & hard drive.

    At the price point they're marketing at, I certainly believe that retaining the standard head-unit form factor & making it removable was a better decision than compromising on form factor to fit in an amp.

  • Well, I'm not as price sensitive as you - for the right device. And I guess all I'm going to do here is reaffirm that you can't please everyone at once.

    What I'm looking for is a CD-walkman sized or (preferably smaller) device, capable of holding a sizeable fraction of my CD collection (say, 70-80 hours worth), with enough connections to be usable at home, in the car or standalone. Something with enough (rechargeable) battery life to stand me a transatlantic flight (say 10 hours to be on the safe side).

    I *know* I've seen (probably on slashdot) a device based on Compaq OEM gear "coming soon" that matches the above. And I've lost the URL!

  • umm, just keep it close to your arm, up your neck and straight to the ear, totally hidden. Don't leave it dangling, what kind of caveman are you?
  • I'm waiting for a watch with MP3 playback AND a decent recording device. I mean, how cool would it be to have recorded that time when I was called down to the pricipal's office for cursing, and HE cursed at ME? The ultimate irony, caught on a watch-based digital MP3 playing/recording device.

    BTW, I doubt that any such recorded conversation would be valid for anything without the prior permission to record and replay anything said by the other party(ies) - but I can think of many, many times where I'd love to have some of the things people say on record to play in front of friends and such =)
  • The Nokia 9110 is out for some time now...
  • I personally like the idea, but i'm gonna wait until they get more advanced and have more memory, and get cheaper. Sure, I'll miss out on the new fangled thrill of it all, but the end result will be I'll get a better watch for less/the same money.

  • New Crusoe watch from Transmeta.

    It does MP3, e-mail, fax and telephone all in one watch. The Crusoe 3000 watch will also come with TV tuner and DVD-player as optional extras.

    Transmeta have spent several months in R&D to come up with the ideal watch for all users. Aside from running the new Linux-Lite (a cut-down version to allow the wearer to lift their arm), the new Crusoe watch can also run Macintosh, Windows and Alpha compiled binaries. New developments in nano-technology have enabled Transmeta to incorporate a full-size keyboard in the watch, with a neatly concealed stylus for hand-writing recognition on the 1024 x 768 capable TFT screen.

    A spokesman for Transmeta said that Linus Torvalds had actually been wearing a fully-working prototype during his speech, but had decided at the last minute not to announce it, as the bulb had blown in the watch's built-in LCD projector.

    The watch will be available from the 19th of January, and is rumoured to be priced in the sub-$300 market to compete in the popular PDA market.
  • Sad to see that on Casio's website it requires a computer with Windows 98. Is anyone aware of any open-standard protocols under development for communications with devices like these? Casio definitely deserves a job well done for turning a wrist-watch into useful, slick devices. And I thought the Timex Beepwear [beepwear.com] was cool. It's only a matter of time before watches will be an all-in-one gadget.

    - Detritus

    "I never really liked computers, but then the server went down on me"
  • It has an IR port to get the images out. :)
  • Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where homer became so fat he couldn't use a normal phone cause his fingers were too fat.
  • I could see it being a conversation piece at the least. I hope it does a 24 hour clock. My Casio G-Shock with digital compass is getting a bit beaten, but I like it's 24 hour clock :). April sounds like the right time to upgrade...
  • This isn't exactly Dick Tracyesque, but I guess it'll do.

  • Linking with Microsoft® Outlook(TM)

    PC-UNITE is able to perform data synchronization with Microsoft® Outlook(TM), one of the most popular PIM applications among business professionals the world over. This means you can download your existing personal data resources and take them along with you.


    1) Is there a way to link to it without Outlook? I don't use outlook under Win2K.
    2) Is there a way to get this to work under Win2K/NT in the first place?
    3) Linux support?!

    Perhaps Casio has forgotten its target audience here. Geeks will want linux support and not many normal people will want an mp3 watch :)
  • Hello! That was "From the article," to qoute your heading. The magazine made that part up, not Casio. It think they were JOKING. J-O-K-I-N-G. Say it with me now. J-O-K-I-N-G.
  • While MS-only support isn't cool (bad Casio, bad) these watches do hold some promise (good, Casio, good).

    The MP3 player could definitely benefit from longer playtime (tops at 66 mins at low Q?) and the recording option you mention would be simply macnifico. Think about the eavesdropping and campfire taping opportunities.

    Now, what else should my wrist, and future, hold? How about the above _and_ the snapshot taking ability _and_ realtime video to & fro my lil' Casiocator with telephony to boot! With voice recognition, no less.

    Just think about the delight when you whisper to your watch "call gf", the little gadget knows video is okay for this link and a few seconds later your gf can see your big nose and nose hair through the little fisheye lens on your watch, while you can witness your loving gf dressing up and milkman making inauspicious exit in the background... wonders of the future!
  • The worst part isn't 'specialized hardware'... there are USB headphones/speakers/mics in development now or already shipping. The problem is cost: most of them are $50 and up. :P
  • So, what's your point? List price for the MP3 watch is $249 for the 32MB one. Even if they were able to provide a 4GB model it would supposedly cost $31,872.

    In short, I think a cost of $1099 is reasonable for a first cut at a new technology for a new small company. Heck, I remember I paid over $800 for by Blaupunkt CD player I have in my car. Sure, that was quite a few years ago, but the first products in a new area are always over-priced. Look at the initial cost of flat-screen CRT monitors or the newer LCD monitors. I also paid over $1000 for my 17" monitor, but paid less than $500 for my 19" monitor a while later. The moral of the story? Complaining about a cost of $1099 is unjustified when this is one of the few products available in it's market space. Did you take a look at the details? All the features?

    Would it be better if the major car CD player manufacturers got on the bandwagon and had products in this market? Yes, of course. It would bring the price down across the board and create competition where there is little right now. But Casio does not make car audio systems. It's kinda like complaining that Sony does not have a new printer out that is capable of the Internet Printing Protocol, and instead came out with a new display technology such as direct retinal imaging.

    Like I said, quit whining, you can't always get what you want, and what you can get usually isn't cheap when if first comes out.
  • See Empeg.com [empeg.com] and stop complaining.

    For one good use of a MP3 capable watch what about people who exercise by running or jogging? Seems like a watch would be much better than something you clip on your belt (which many people don't wear when jogging anyway).

    Whine Whine Whine...
  • I meant what I said: AC +1 (as apposed to AC +10 (naked) or AC -10). Implying that the gadget would provide real good armor on that arm.


    Of course, your arm would get very tired....

  • You should see the Carouso mobile opera singer from PanStatic. Uses the diaphramatic compression algorithm. Bjorn Snoballs, instigator of the popular free operating system Bjornix, wears one in the shower. LALALALALALA!
  • I still ask the same question: why not music module (MOD, S3M, IT, XM) players!?
    they use very little space compared to MP3s and the sound quality is excellent. they require even less CPU processing power and there are thousands of great ones to choose and download on the internet (and gives a kick about those piracy issues).

    jaime g. wong
    jaguar / paperclip
  • This reminds me of those spy gadgets you wanted when you were little... You know, the ones that were super ultra-cool and small that you could bring anywhere and pretend you were like James Bond. Tiny little cameras, lasers in wristwatches, you know the deal.
  • Xeenon already makes a really good mp3 car player (so i hear....i dont acutally have one) for $550. it plays Mp3 CDs and uses a proprietary OS, however, so the prestiege of using linux and not having skips are absent...but it looks really cool. check it out.. http://www.xeenon.com
  • Hey, this is progress, all over- it's just awesome that we keep this up. Remember those calculator watches? I rememebr all my friends used to have those in school... But how easy is it to use? That was the crappy part! I think the point here is not so much that it has a wristband... but the miniaturization. I would probably hang this off a belt loop or something- but hey! It sure would be nice to be able to take this thing wherever you go. Normally, i don't like casio... I think i'll wait for the Rolex :)
  • Yep, or as we say in the industry: Bose-Bring Other Sound Equipment.

    Brian Haskin
  • About 12 years ago I bought a Casio Data Bank watch. This is rather similar to this PIM watch: You can store 50 items, each being either a phonenumber+name (12 characters), or a schedule (10 characters, date+time). It has a small membrane keyboard that is surprisingly easy to use with your fingernails. And also a countdown timer, stopwatch, 24 timezones, alarm, time, dayofweek, year etc. etc. Very easy in everyday use and small. Having such a PDA in your watch is so much better than having a 'portable' PDA like a PalmPilot is that you never can forget them (because you always wear them).
    In this respect PIM is nothing but a new term for the same thing, only without the little keyboard (which sucks), but with more capacity. If you keep on forgetting dragging your PDA with you, go for one of these.
  • Oh yes and another extra: The PC interface.
    I wouldn't bother about it, because I usually
    don't have my PC near me when making appointments.
  • I've had a G-Shock for like 15 years now without ever replacing the battery. The rubber around the actual watch itself is slowly coming off. I think they are great.. and look tough. It's been banged around, ran over with a car, hit with a hockey puck playing broomball, smashed by lumber on a contruction job, you name it.. and it only has some scratches on the glass. I can't wait to get one of these mp3 watches!!
  • I don't know if they left off the internal amp so much as to save money or to be more like a competition deck with 2 sets of RCA outs.
  • Rather than think in James Bond terms, I like to think of it in Cyberpunk 2020 terms. Nowadays it seems all I have to do is pull out my Chrome Book 1, flip to a random page, and there's next weeks new techno-gizmo to be announced :)

  • Not that most nerds mind, but I think I would rather have something a little less intrusive. Reminds me of the first Casio altimeter watch that came out. Ultra cool, but it kept slamming into doorways.

    Still, I'm tempted... I was hoping I had outgrown my nerd lack of fashion, but my love of gadgets is threatening to overwhelm my good sense. :)


    ---

  • Yes, you always have your watch with you because it's primary use is a timepiece and secondary function is a PIM. On a Palm, the primary use is PIM and secondary is timepiece.

    I may not carry my Palm around on my wrist, but I keep it in my briefcase so when an alarm goes off, I am nearby. The only time I don't have my Palm near me is when I'm at home and don't have any appointments anyway!

    Now that I think about it, it must be a real pain to enter information on the watch (scroll through letters one at a time, etc) so maybe this is design to enter information on Palm where it is much easier then send it to your watch. If that is the case, I sure hope that it is an IR transfer and not some funky wire or worse a Palm-to-PC-back-to-Watch method.

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • it's a closed system at the present time

    The hardware is closed. I can understand that decision. Hell, if I made expensive hardware which operates in an electronically noisy environment, I won't risk additional warranty problems with people fiddling around inside -- there are too many people out there who think they know what they're doing. The software is open enough for me.

  • Why not put the headphones on the USB bus? Fewer connectors means smaller watch. Also maybee usable with that whole USB is cool thing. Of course this does lead to specialized hardware...

    Seems like you're stuck putting an amp somewhere else tho.
  • I finally got off Casio last year. Had it with the cheap plastic bands and geek look. Got a Sieko kenitic. Looks like a regular watch, but flip it over and see the counterweight for charging the capicitor (still geek IMHO). Also the most accurate watch I've ever owned, loosing 1 sec every 3-4 months. However, the camera watch does look interesting. I just hope they have a version with a decent case.

  • NEW!!!

    A wristwatch that is FREE, all you have to do is get it and as an added bonus you will recieve through weekly upgrades, SPECIAL OFFERS from companies that are EXCLUSIVE to FreeWatch owners!

    i just thought this up, if some company is going to use that, um i have patented it already so if you even think about using this i will sue you for all your cpus and money and anything else i think of.

    seriously, this is my prediction of what will happen, then add a small color lcd screen and aol is advertising on your watch.
  • QUOTE
    Need to sneak a picture of your competition's new product but can't get a camera past the security checkpoint?
    /QUOTE

    That is not legal from what i know, i dont see how they can say that and not get into trouble.
  • i wear a timex too and i cant kill the thing...i have had it for years and never had to change a battery or anything, save a wristband...

    my watch beeps, thats all i need it to do
  • Forget watch-style players with tiny headphones! Give me a Boom Hat(tm,(c),pat pend): MP3 player, loudspeakers and battery pack that I can wear on my head! It gives me the same, great skull-splitting sound I get from my car stereo plus I can really annoy the other people around me at the store, in the elevator and on the street!

  • I whole-heartedly agree. The LAST thing on this planet I want is wires running from my watch on my wrist to my headphones on my head. Total foolishness... Of course, if they hooked up with all the people out there like the MIT Media Lab doing research on running wires through fabric, then *maybe*, but still doubtful....only in winter...laugh...
  • If you look at the picture, it says "Watch Camera" right on the thing. It also has a very distinctive appearance. There's no way that any place with decent security is going to overlook one of these things. I could see it working at a rock concert, where you only have to go under the direct scrutiny of the security guards once, but trying to use it to get your competitors' secrets would be pretty much useless. With that much effort needed to avoid detection, (you'd have to keep covering the thing back up with your sleeve, etc) you might as well just get some other kind of spy-type camera.

    Marissa
  • Many of us have posted on the discomfort of having headphones attached to your watch. But functionality seems much more confusing.
    A headphone jack takes up considerable space, especially on a watch. So unless the headphones use the USB port, I'm really curious as to how this thing has 64 MB mem plus a sound system plus a time chip plus a display.
    Of course, a solution would be radio-linked headphones.
    ===
    -Ravagin
  • OK, so it's big... for a watch. Does that mean that it's big for an MP3 player? Is it, say, more convenient than having a Rio strapped to your wrist?

    Ya gotta keep in mind what a thing like this is gonna be used for - you want music (of your choice) and you want to take it with you. Maybe it's a sport thing (running, working out, whatever) but regardless, the idea here is not to have some klunky box on the end of your headphones... in that sense, even if it is big, it's not.

    ---GEC
  • Personally, if I were to get a portable mp3 player, I would hope that it takes MP3 burned CD-R's, what's the point of spending so much cash for only 64MB of storage (about 70 mins audio). I can burn an audio cd that holds 74 minutes audio and use a regular cd player for a fraction of the cost.

    I can burn an mp3 cd that holds 800 minutes audio.. but this would only be readable on a PC. I'd rather not carry around a laptop computer just to listen to my music on the subway to school.

    Now as for G-Shock sales.. I've had my casio G-Shock watch for about 8 years now.. This was the first of many watches that has not actually broken. This watch can take a beating and still keep working. The reason why they can't sell any more G-Shocks is because the people who wanted them already baught them years ago, and they still work ok.
  • Finally the watches that I allways have seen in Bond-movies, excluding the explosives ofcourse.

    I wonder though, how much fun will it be listening to the mp3's, since arms will be moving around and this could jerk the headphones out of your ear (this could lead to injury, which could lead to lawsuit (only in America), which could lead to alot of laughing about the American legals system, I love it allready ;-)). So either you need a very long cable or not wear it around your wrist.

    The PC Unite watch would be the perfect invention for me, cause it would alarm me of meetings I forget. Also the 8200 character text browser is great for exams. :-)

  • i would much rather have a large mp3 player like the 4.8 gig ones they were promising a while back than listen to my watch with headphones. there wouldn't be a point in wearing this since the damn cord would wrap around your arm all the time.

    instead of wasting time on portables that you have to change every 30 minutes, try making one that is reasonabally priced, and functional.
  • Just a few months ago a friend of mine was complaining about the deluge of useless technology that was being forced on consumers while good ideas fail to be implemented. this MP3 player watch seems like a case in point.
    Who's going to listen to music from their watch? I can't imagine which is sillier i) a watch with headphones or ii) the weak, tinny sound of rap music coming from a watch with speakers.
    Why didn't their focus groups ask users of MP3s what they want before making these useless toys. Why can't I find a decent car MP3 player that detaches and connects to my PC so i don't have to worry about playing MP3s in my car. When will a car MP3 player with an optional IP address make it's debut? Why is Casio wasting our time with this feeble attempt to remain relevant and cutting edge in an increasingly digital world...are sales from G-shock that bad?
  • Now all I need is to make these things run linux and get a beowulf cluster of them on my arm...
  • Hmm, looks promising... After looking at the picture, I got the impression that the headphone jack looks like an adapter that is plugged into the USB port. I imagine this is how it works - remove the jack to download music, put it back in to listen. Personally, I think this looks awfully cool, and I for one don't think it would be too bad having your headphones hooked up to your wrist. I spend all day at the keyboard programming, and this would be just right... I could listen to MP3s whilst coding. SWEEEET... Only trouble is, no software for Linux. Of course, I'm sure it won't be long before someone writes the necessary program. I really hate it when cool products come out with support for Windows only. That's not the only OS out there, people... It seems to me that the revenue they could make by adding Linux support, etc., would far outweigh the minimal cost of porting the download software. Oh well. A bit pricy though... $249 for a 32MB model. I would prefer the 64MB model myself.
  • only thing preventing a cellphone watch is the battery technology.


    --
  • okies so it doesn't *look* good but imagine the possibilitys :) you could get photos in all kind of places, anytime there is that kodak moment.

    didn't mention a port out for the camera watch though :(

    the idea of the mp3 watch doesn't appeal - i'd rather listen to an mp3 walkman type affair, rather than have my head tethered to my wrist, and i dont use MS Outlook, so i don't really have much use for the PIM one :)
    --
  • I think that they need to make a scientific calculator version of the Data-Bank series. Graphing optional. I love MP3s and all, but I think Casio skipped a few steps when they never released something that had the caliber of the TI-85. :^)

    -- Does Rain Man use the Autistic License for his software?
  • Not at all --- it is the speakers that are the weakest link here, whereas the quality of cheap audio amplification is comparatively superb. The car is *not* an audiophile environment, and $10 is ample nowadays for all the integrated components needed to provide perceptually reasonable in-car sound, far better in fact than the quality of the original speaker installation. ($10 audio component cost for a built-in amplifier easily maps to a $100-$150 typical radio-cassette player cost.)

    Furthermore, there must be plenty of people (I extrapolate from myself) that would spend quite a lot of money on an MP3 in-car player just for the convenience while being perfectly happy with the "hifi experience" provided by the car's default sound installation, so Empeg definitely *has* lost a potential market segment by that decision.
  • The kicking that Casio are getting in this thread may be well deserved, if for no other reason than that they don't seem to have woken up to the fact that Microsoft is no longer the only game in town. Their search box returns nothing for "Linux" anyway.

    Looks like there's a good opening here for a more progressive competitor in the gadget world.

    Does anyone know who their main competitor is currently?
  • The in-car unit from empeg.com has a few problems.

    It's far too expensive, it's a closed system at the present time (though they say they'll open it to techies eventually), and rather incredibly, it doesn't have an audio amplifier built in so that it can't simply replace a normal integrated car entertainment unit. That decision must have saved them less than $10 while totally destroying their chances in the market.

  • Sigh (Score:2)

    by drix ( 4602 )
    It seems that Casio still hasn't figured out it's possible to be both functional and stylish at the same time. Look at the pictures - the thing is butt ugly. I wouldn't be caught dead wearing, not to mention the possible ergonomic issues of bead offbalance and heavy to one side from wearing it. Guess I'll just have to wait for my Rolex gold MP3 watch - it's already in the mail.

    --
  • Clinton wears Timex :)

    Just yesterday my Casio G-shock died after being bashed against the wall :(
    --
  • I think I am going off hold off getting another MP3 player until I can get one embedded in my skull.
  • exactly, that empeg is not a car stereo, it's a car Jukebox. Your entire CD collection, enough music for a week long car ride, no changing media, ever, no skipping, random selection, playlists, Linux. It offers a lot and costs a lot, wait 2 years, it'll be $250.

    And if you really need something to do to stop bitchin', build one yerself :)
  • The title says it all: how much would it suck to have your headphones anchored to your wrist? Imagine the tangling, tripping, and yanking. Imagine putting a coat on, or taking it off. Imagine riding a bike and signalling. Imagine smoking. Imagine typing at a keyboard. Imagine carrying a briefcase, or adjusting a knapsack's straps. Damn, would that ever suck.
  • Yup all the mp3 player makers are pretty clueless.. Hmm.. I can only think of ONE good design for a portable mp3 player.. built it into the frigin headphones! It's not like it needs to weigh anything and the buttons can be designed so that you can find theem without looking at the player.

    Now, there are all sorts of things which is is good to include mp3 players in via software.. cellphones, PDAs, car sterios (removable like you were talking about would be very cool), etc. Also, you could make a case that a dual mp3 player / low bit rate voice recorder should probable not be a pair of head phones too.

    Jeff
  • Memo to Casio: invent the Human Bus. MP3/whatever player on the belt, watch on the arm, no wires linking them, but the watch is the controller. Why? So you can control something that's easily accessible (it's on your wrist) rather than fumbling around blindly at something on your belt. Also, something on your belt could be a lot bigger and heavier (look at pagers/cellphones) as compared to something on the end of your arm.

    I agree completely. Another advantage to this is that you wouldn't have to take off the watch to recharge the batteries. You could still wear the watch while the MP3 player recharges.
  • How legal could this watch be, as they even advertise it as "to get a camera past security"..

    I'll get one if they get to sweden of course :)
  • dude.. the picture clearly shows the headphone jack on the side of the watch with headphones plugged into it. Its not really a mobile player due to hassles with the headphone cord, but would be good for when your sitting at work or something. The thing I don't get is that the headphone jack is mounted on the side of the watch, and looks like it would get in the way alot (putting on jackets e.t.c) I hope it comes off, otherwise its a stupid design imho.
  • From the Empeg [empeg.com] website

    Cost: projected price US$1099 (excluding shipping) for 4Gb version.

    This implies that not only is the player not available (actually it does seem to be available as beta, whatever that means) but it's going to cost more than 3 times the cost of an average MP3 player. The purpose of my post is that there should be more companies working on car MP3 players (Sony, Pioneer, Rio, etc.) instead of 1 company selling an overpriced buggy product.
    PS: Check out MP3Car.com [mp3car.com] if you're interested in finding out about playing MP3s in your car.
  • Why is this a 5?
    I dunno ask the moderators...I'm at 2 now so I guess more people agreed with you. I'm kinda surprised at the total of 9 moderations I got.

    Sounds more like a troll to me, I think this is a great idea and I'm planning on getting one
    I'm sorry I have to disagree with you here... this is not a great idea. It's probably not even a good idea. My objection to the device is that it pursues convergence for convergence's sake and does not add utility to the consumer experience (this is similar to why PalmOS is beating Windows CE in the handheld market). The watch is a "build it and they will come" device. It is a neat but rather impractical gadget, it is cumbersome to walk around with headphones sticking out of your watch and secondly the controls would be have to be small and thus difficult to manipulate.
    This seems to me like a bid by Casio to jump on the "internet-enabled" bandwagon without doing research to see if this is a needed or wanted device.
    Besides you aren't supposed to listen to it with speakers, you're supposed to use headphones.
    Yeah, I missed that when I read the article the first time.
    And why the hell are you listening to rap?
    'cuz it's tha muthaf***ing sh*t dawg :)
  • Oh, this is too cool. I am ordering one right away! I hope it comes with good sound though. Hopefully tiny little Bose cube speakers would be ideal :)

  • I just thought of Bose because they market those tiny little cube speakers that supposedly sound great for their size. I don't think I would actually buy a pair of Bose speakers because they seem like a ripoff. Oh well, hey, what do you recommend for a television surround sound system since we are on the topic?

  • Well, the headphones would probably would be wireless. Having headphones attached to your wrist would kind of defy the purpose of watch-mp3player.

    Now, what would be cool is if it had a wireless net connection and download streaming mp3s :)
  • Actually, headphones attached to your wrist works pretty well. When I was a kid I got a gift of one of those radio watches, and it worked like a charm.

    When you put on a jacket, the headphone cable simply goes up the jacket sleeve. No fuss, no muss, and it's actually LESS likely to catch on things than a regular headphone cable.

    The biggest difficulty was the controls -- the dials were so small you basically ended up selecting a single station, and leaving it at that. I expect that the MP3 watch will be similar -- people will just press PLAY and nothing else.

  • Nice, but is it durable? (Score:3)

    by Magus311X ( 5823 ) on Saturday January 08, 2000 @10:40AM (#1391003)
    I've owned a numerous deal of gadgety watches from Casio, as several co-workers of mine. They're truly ingenious little wonders, and we often do make excuses to justify purchases, but they never seem to last long.

    First I had a watch with a calculator. The buttons were minute but I got used to them after a bit. It was a nice device, and fairly solid. This is the only Casio I've owned that's managed to last. It was annihilated by a racquetball that hit me in the wrist. I mean, no way it could've been saved. I give this one credit though, as it held up through years of showers, swimming, and abuse.

    Then I moved onto the Databank 150. It was a nice watch, and it really was quite useful, freeing me from carrying around a small notebook for phone numbers and reminders. Unfortunately, one of the buttons had a habit of sticking inside the watch, which would drain the battery in 2-3 days. Friends reported that small bumps and even a decent static charge would knock out their organizer for good.

    Then I moved to the touchscreen version. Ah, no more square inch keyboard. It was great, until a static discharge from a combination of a monitor and the fiber/cat5 switching system knocked it out. Being under warranty I shipped it out to Casio in which its currently being repaired.

    The other thing that was often a nuisance is getting a battery replaced. No shop in the area was Casio certified and had the battery replacement tools, except one. I went in asking to see if they replaced the batteries in a Casio and they told me to come back the following day around 6, in which her brother with his special tool would replace it for me. I wanted my info back, so I came back and he gladly took my watch and used his special tool -- a paperclip which he masterfully bent and shaped to remove the covering -- and replaced the battery. What can I say, it worked damn well.

    Currently though I have a pretty stock $18 Timex w/ Indiglo. It gets me by. These new watches look keen, specially the mp3 watch, and the new organizer, but I have some reservation in buying yet another watch to again handle and lose important information.

    I think I'll just wait until the color Palm Pilots come along and just use my watch as a watch. =)
    --

  • They switch on HTTP_USER_AGENT! (Score:3)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Saturday January 08, 2000 @11:52AM (#1391004) Homepage Journal
    &LT funny &GT

    They Casio site wouldn't let me in until I allowed HTTP_USER_AGENT through my proxy. The dastards! We should all nuke their site for having the temerity to invade our privacy like that!
    &LT /funny &GT


    Seriously though, with all these single function wrist gadgets, you'd have to be an octopus to have everything: PCS phone (Swatch), Camera (Casio), MP3 player (Casio), AM/FM Radio (various), TV (Casio), PIM (Casio). Why don't they combine them all into one uber-gadget that you wear like a bracer. That way, not only do you have all your toys, you also have AC +1 on one arm!

  • Casio has some dumb ideas (Score:3)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Saturday January 08, 2000 @10:26AM (#1391005)
    I don't understand why Casio is advertsising their PIM watch as "being able to syncronize with a Palm device". Aren't the functions of these devices identical? I mean, either you carry around the watch or you carry around the Palm...but never both. How annoying would it be to have to mute two alarms every time you had an appointment?

    And as far as the MP3 watch goes, I don't understand the point of having rechargeable batteries. I have owned Casio watches for years, and the main reason I buy the waterproof ones is so I never have to take it off. If I have to take the MP3 watch off my wrist every night to recharge the batteries, then I'm going to be walking around my house staring at the blank wrist where my watch is supposed to be.

    The wrist camera, however, is a totally cool idea that has almost 1000 possible abuses. It's small enough for perverts to embed in their shoes for crystal clear upskirts. Take off the bands and then you can wedge it into a crack in a changing room. If Casio is truly sick, they'll link the timer to the camera so you can program the watch to take pictures in X minute intervals.

    Way to go, Casio!

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  • How about an Mp3 pacemaker? (Score:3)

    by Wag ( 102501 ) on Saturday January 08, 2000 @10:18AM (#1391006)
    Perfect for those of us who are tone deaf. Always keeps you in time with the music. Don't play anything too fast though...

  • Gaget watches (Score:4)

    by Nelson ( 1275 ) on Saturday January 08, 2000 @10:38AM (#1391007)
    I've always been in to them. The Casio thermo watch, back in the day was semi cool, not a terribly accurate thermometer though. I got the Avocet alpine watch, it is much better but rather hefty, it's flaw is one of calibration it could be accurate or it could be terribly inaccurate if it wasn't calibrated. Then I got a polartec heart monitor, it has changed the ways I workout, not terribly accurate but provides enough information to make adjustments if you're training for something. I've looked at Suunto's recently. There seems to be a theme, these gadgets are remarkably cool ideas but they never seem to work very well. I'm comparing the suunto to the avocet and while neither is going to be 100% accurate both are reasonable and then both are flipping huge, wear it daily and you'll probably need to go to the chiropractor because you back will get screwed up with all the extra weight on one arm. When it's all said and done, I have my specialty geek boy watches but for daily wear I wear the timex.. it's much smaller and more comfortable and for some crazy reason I feel like it is more likly going to get destroyed and I'd rather buy another $30 ironman than a $200 Suunto Vector. Most important, it keeps the time very well. The avocet runs out of batteries about every 18months and I've always been on top of a mountain when it happens.


    I like that camera watch.. I see two good uses for it, snapping pictures where you aren't supposed to and those candid moments where you wish you had a camera and don't. The pictures will be low quality, read fun snaps, but it's a picture where you otherwise would have none. I'm guessing the actual model will make the avocet vertech alpine look like a feather. It will be a great watch if you wear it every day but it will be too big to wear every day. In my weakness, I could see my self forking over the cash even though I know it won't work so well. I suspect this watch will end up being outlawed in a few places.


    The MP3 watch is also a wicked cool idea but I just don't see the practcality in it. I'd rather go buy a rio and then have a watch that doesn't run out of batteries and lose the time. I'm betting this one will be a real piece of junk.


    Then the palmpilot watch is cool but I've got a palmpilot. Watches aren't terribly good interfaces for a lot of stuff, I think my palmpilot will be magnitudes easier to use and it's small enough. Probably the best functioning one of these watches but it will be a pain to use it and it's not nearly as cool as the camera.


    Why no cellphone watch yet? I would think that Casio's number one competition with this stuff is the integrated PCS phone market, if palm signs a deal with Ericson or something and integrates a pilot into a cellphone that would be a pretty killer product.


    I'm betting that all of them will be junk but at least the camera will be cool enough that people will buy them.

  • Portable CD player w/MP3 decoding of CDR :-) (Score:4)

    by SpiceWare ( 3438 ) on Saturday January 08, 2000 @11:17AM (#1391008) Homepage
    Pine Technology [pineusa.com] has(or will have) what you desire, the SM-200C [pineusa.com] which has a suggested list of $299. This article [computercurrents.com] at Computer Currents [computercurrents.com] says it should have been out in November.

    More info [zdnet.com] from ZD-Net [zdnet.com].

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