Time for a smartwatch - Business - The Boston Globe

In other new watch news watches, see Scoop: Google acquired WIMM Labs to bolster its own smartwatch plans [GigaOM]

"There’s nothing new about the idea of smartwatches. Primitive computerized timepieces have been around since the 1980s. But their bulky styling and limited features doomed them with consumers. In 2003, Microsoft Corp. introduced SPOT, a hefty digital watch that could display news headlines and weather reports via a wireless data receiver. The public wasn’t buying; SPOT was discontinued in 2008.
But people may be warming to the concept. Sony’s SmartWatch, introduced last year, has sold about 200,000 units, said Joshua Flood, an analyst at ABI Research in London. In June, Sony introduced an upgraded version."

Time for a smartwatch - Business - The Boston Globe