watches

Pricepinx intelligently watches for price drops online

I've looked at a handful of price watching services, but this one has got to be the coolest. It's called Pricepinx, and it's been designed to work on any site--not just some of the big retailers.

All you have to do to get going is add a small bookmarklet to your browser, highlight the price of the item and click on the bookmarklet. If there are any changes in price, you'll be notified by e-mail. As an added bonus for those who register with the service, added items are pooled together in a list. You can … Read more

The survivalist's $500,000 watch

If you thought only cockroaches would survive a nuclear holocaust, here's something else to add to the rarefied list--Zenith's Defy Xtreme Zero-G Watch. Its makers have apparently imbued this timepiece with the powers of Superman since it not only defies gravity (being accurate even in extreme gravity), but it's also waterproof down to 1,000 feet. You can read about the technology behind this feat at the Web site. Did we mention it costs $500,000? Yes, that's five zeros.

As for bodywork, it's armored in a blackened titanium body, with a titanium strap sporting … Read more

The Whole World is Watching

During protests outside the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968, activists took up a rallying cry shouting The whole world is watching as news cameras captured the police violently overtaking the crowd. Indeed the whole world was watching, but only because the news media happened to be their with their cameras and live feed.

As Salvatore Rivieri of the Baltimore Police department knows first hand, things have changed. In July of last year, Officer Rivieri was patrolling the Inner Harbor when he came across 14 year-old Eric Bush and some of his friends riding their skateboards. A heated exchange occurred and at one point, Rivieri places Eric in a headlock and takes his skateboard from him. Toward the end of the episode, the officer notices that Eric's friend Tony Santo is holding a camera.

"You got that camera on?" Rivieri asks. "If I find myself on you.." The video goes dead.

… Read more

Cellwatch is finally ready for debut

Well, that was a disappointment. Last year we were intrigued by concept photos of a next-generation watch phone from SMS Technology that looked like an iPhone strapped to a wrist. But now the "Cellwatch M500" is scheduled to launch in March, and it looks pretty much like so many other other watch phones that seem to come out every other month.

The Australian-made M500, however, may be one of the few models that doesn't come from a generic Chinese company, which will undoubtedly give it more credibility among potential consumers. At the same time, its price--about $900--is … Read more

Futuristic watch concepts via Kanye West (?!)

In case you weren't up on your blogsphere knowledge, ultra suave rapper Kanye West has a blog that'll drop some knowledge on y'all (his words, not mine.) He occasionally posts one or two sentence posts about fashion, music and the latest in tech he finds appealing. That's where we find these two interesting watch concepts.

The first, from design firm Chocolate Agency, sports the "e-paper" technology we've all come to know and love, albeit in a futuristic form that isn't anywhere near ready for prime-time. (C'mon, you've seen the Kindle'… Read more

What passes for bling in China

The tech industry's unfortunate bling factor has not escaped the overseas wholesale market. Case in point: Chinavasion, maker of so many multimedia watches, has come out with a "gold edition" of its own.

This timepiece, which can play music and videos on a 1.8-inch LCD, also has built-in Bluetooth so it can work with phones and other devices wirelessly, according to GeekAlerts. Yet this is China we're talking about, so don't expect Western luxury prices. The top-of-the-line 4GB model of this edition comes in at $103.87. Then again, it probably isn't real … Read more

Gadgettes 74: The What the Hell? Episode

… Read more

Facebook tops one list of 'slow and inaccessible' social networks

On Thursday, Web site-monitoring firm WatchMouse released the results of a study about the performance of 104 social-media sites--social networks, blogging communities, bookmarking sites, and the like--and boldly deemed them to be overall "slow and inaccessible."

WatchMouse used its "Site Performance Index" (SPI) methodology to track the reliability and load time of the sites in question; this figure is computed by calculating the time needed to call up a site's home page and applying a penalty for each failed request. Lower is better: an SPI of 500 is considered good, whereas the Utrecht, Netherlands-based WatchMouse … Read more

A watch phone in dire need of a makeover

If this is what it takes to get a full-featured cell phone watch, we'll pass. Even if it does deliver as promised--MP3 playback, videos, Bluetooth, MIDI ring tones, 260,000-color resolution, and a raft of other features, according to ProductDose--we wouldn't be able to look at this ugly thing for fear of turning to stone.

It's not the Pepto-Bismol pink that bothers us; it's, well, just about everything else, from its bulky girth to cheap silver-toned filigrees. It doesn't help that it has a stylus that looks suspiciously like an eyebrow pencil.

It's … Read more