Microsoft Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) Site

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/resources/spot/default3.mspx' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...t/default3.mspx</a><br /><br /></div>"Smart Personal Objects Technology will make everyday objects such as wristwatches, alarm clocks, and key chains, better at what they do. These information delivery devices will be able to provide high-value, personalized information that is time, location and context relevant. Enriching their functions in this way makes life easier for you, and with better communication. Smart wristwatches, the first devices in the category, are scheduled to be available in fall of 2003."<br /><br />Want to know more about the SPOT technology and future products? Check out this site. Fall of 2003 though? That's quite a while to wait. Still, I'm excited - these look kind of cool, although I read an editorial that slammed the concept pretty bad. I guess licensing the FM band like this has been done at least three times in the past 20 years by various companies, and they've all failed. Something as simple as being inside a building that blocks the FM signal makes a watch like this all but useless.<br /><br />What do you think? Does Microsoft have a good chance of making this succeed, or will this be a failure?

[T-Will]

What's the URL for the editorial that bashed SPOT? Also, how sensitive are FM signals to walls? FM radios work indoors so why wouldn't the watches?

This seems like a cool idea, but I'm not so sure about the monthly fee to use it. Also lets say you have multiple devices, would you have to pay a separate subscription for each device?

[Jason Dunn]

I don't recall the URL off hand (which is why I didn't link it up), but it's probably in here somewhere...

http://news.google.com/news?num=30&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&safe=off&q=Microsoft+SPOT&sa=N&tab=wn

[daS]

I guess licensing the FM band like this has been done at least three times in the past 20 years by various companies, and they've all failed. Something as simple as being inside a building that blocks the FM signal makes a watch like this all but useless.
Yes, Seiko tried this years ago with thier message watch. It even did text paging using the FM radio sideband. It did this in a clever way: The watch was synced to a very accurate time standard via the radio transmission. Watches were then assigned a very narrow time slot in which their user-specific data would be transmitted (assuming there was anything to send.) That avoided the watch having to keep the radio receiver powered up all the time. It would wake up for a split second, look for a message, re-sync to the time standard again, then go back to sleep. You could also get news, sports, stock quotes, etc. on the watch.

While using FM radio stations to transmit the signal meant that they could blanket a city with one transmitter, as you point out, the system wasn't very reliable. :?

[Janak Parekh]

FM radios work indoors so why wouldn't the watches?
Not nearly as well in steel buildings. Being in NYC, and having had an FM watch (the Seiko MessageWatch), the reception was pretty bad. I'd get reception about 50% of the time while indoors.

--janak

[whydidnt]

I'm not sure I "get it". Do that many people really need to have constant news and traffic updates. I admit the ability to recieve a message is nice, but anyone that is considering a purchase such as this most probably already has a cell-phone with SMS capabilities.

I think it was proved back when Windows 98 was released with the laughable "channels" that consumers just are that interested in push technology.

I guess "time" :wink: will tell.

[Ethan]

Good piece here

www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/03/01/10/030110hnspot.xml?s=IDGNS

[Perry Reed]

Apparently the FM data signal is fairly flaky. You need a pretty strong signal, stronger than for regular FM audio; so just because you can received the FM station on the radio doesn't mean that the watch will get the data.

I've read that receiving the data indoors is especially problematic.

Still, I have a thing for cool watches, so I'm very interested in this.

[daS]

Being in NYC, and having had an FM watch (the Seiko MessageWatch), the reception was pretty bad. I'd get reception about 50% of the time while indoors.
Well that was certainly one of the causes of the failure for Seiko.

Perhaps Microsoft learned something since then and is using an even lower bandwidth signal with greater error correction. In theory, if you add enough bits to the data stream you can overcome a huge error rate. This is what NASA does with deep space probes.

The disadvantage is that this would greatly preclude custom information for specific users. You would only be able to filter from the data that everyone can receive.

[Janak Parekh]

Perhaps Microsoft learned something since then and is using an even lower bandwidth signal with greater error correction.
I hope so, but I'm skeptical. It's not difficult at all, in NYC, to be in areas where virtually no FM station is remotely tunable, and I'm not talking the subway ;) I'm aware that given a sufficiently low bandwidth, it doesn't need to be audible, but at the same time FM is very sensitive to interference and sources of noise.

--janak