Bored with your watch? Try these puzzlers
Tokyoflash's latest series of slick designer wristwatches features lightweight aluminum construction, LED lights, and maddeningly confusing time displays.
(Credit:
Tokyoflash)
The Kisai series inherits the qualities of previous incomprehensible Tokyoflash timepieces such as the Fire and the Pleasure Seeker, namely that users must spend hours deciphering their alien time-reckoning systems.
They certainly put one's brain to work. The Sensai model (right), which weighs 2.5 ounces and sells for about $233, tells the time after a button on its right side is pushed. The button first initiates a circular animation of colored LEDs.
When the animation stops, the hour is shown according to the number of red LEDs. So far, so good. When it comes to minutes, things get tricky.
Eleven green LEDs represent five-minute groups and four yellow LEDs represent single minutes. So, three red, two green, and two yellow equals 3:12 (editor's note: this post was updated to indicate the correct breakdown of colors; thanks to the reader who pointed the error out). Clear as mud? There's a demo here.
To watch an explanation of how another Kisai model works, click the vid below (the speaker calls the watch a "friend maker").
Now if only Tokyoflash could come up with an impenetrable Mayan Apocalypse Watch, they'd corner the market for the 2012 doomsday set.
Crave freelancer Tim Hornyak is the author of "Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots." He has been writing about Japanese culture and technology for a decade. E-mail Tim. 
Don't you mean three red, two green, and two yellow???
Don't you mean three red, two green, and two yellow???
if you find yourself needing to say 'like' as a filler word, stop and pause. you'll sound more intelligent and i for one won't tune you out.
- by tcolliso November 12, 2009 11:07 AM PST
- As an added feature the watch should count the number of times the dude uses the word "like" in his conversations.
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