Bill Gates doing his song and dance routine at CES. I have to admit that this does sound interesting. Though I doubt any time soon that we will see any Mac compatibility.
While initial presentations on SPOT have stayed on the theoretical side, Gates on Wednesday demonstrated the first devices that will use the technology. Watchmakers Fossil, Citizen and Suunto all plan to have SPOT-enabled models available by the end of the year.
The watches will connect to PCs to calibrate themselves, download software and connect wirelessly to streaming data beamed over FM radio signals to grab the latest sports scores or stock prices.
Gates hailed the watches as the first fruition of Microsoft’s effort to seamlessly blend digital data into everyday life. “This is something we’ve been working on for a number of years, and it’s really exciting to see it coming to reality,” he said. “We see these devices continuing to get smarter and get better at knowing what messages you might be interested in at a particular time.”
He also noted that the forthcoming watches have faster processors and four times as much memory as the first IBM PCs.
More theoretical SPOT items included refrigerator magnets that wirelessly retrieve information on local traffic or specials at area restaurants.