ALKHOBAR, 16 September 2003 — Two weeks ago both Typhoon Dujuan and I blew into Hong Kong together for the 22nd edition of the Watch and Clock Fair. The exhibition attracted over 700 exhibitors from 13 countries and regions. Despite those impressive numbers, everybody I spoke with wanted to know why a tech writer was interested in the fair.
According to the latest available statistics, Hong Kong is the world’s second largest exporter of complete watches in terms of both value and quantity. Thus far in 2003, the United Arab Emirates ranks eighth in terms of major markets for Hong Kong’s total exports of watches and clocks. Saudi Arabia ranks 21st. It’s a sure thing that the new watches on display at the Hong Kong Watch and Clock Fair will shortly be turning up in the Gulf’s retail market. And get ready folks. Some of the watches shown at the fair were quite amazing. Thanks to miniaturization techniques, these days watches can do a whole lot more than just tell time.
Set your mobile phone to silent and put it in your briefcase. Strap on the Frogtongue Mobile Detector Watch and the next time you have an incoming call the lights in your watch face will start flashing. The watch flashes due to a built-in antenna and a special semiconductor chip. Such a bright alert method means you’ll never miss a call again.
Another watch that flashes a signal is the Infrared Message watch. This creation, like many other special-use watches, is targeted at the 16-27-year-old age group. Nick Wong, marketing executive, Youngs Watch Company, demonstrated how one infrared watch could send a message to another infrared watch from a distance of five meters. Currently, the only problem is finding someone else who has the infrared watch so you can send a message.
Some companies have entire research and development, and manufacturing units for special-use watches. Latitude Limited was founded in 1990. Their Hong Kong headquarters and China plants employ a staff of over 600 individual talents.
“We embraced the digital watch concept and have earned worldwide recognition for the quality products we produce,” said Lobo Law, marketing manager, Latitude Limited. “Fashion watches are beautiful but we found that people are increasingly involved in activities that demand rugged, multifunctional watches.”
Law explained that Latitude does market research investigating how watches can add value to people’s lives. When they find an area of demand, then their R&D staff in Hong Kong work to create a watch to meet that need. Their Sensor watch range came on the market five years ago and was immediately popular.
“Sensor watches are for people who are health conscious or who engage in outdoor activities,” said Law. “So far we have developed watches that incorporate a barometer, thermometer, altimeter, chronometer, timer, digital compass, pacer, wind speed meter, dive meter and UV meter.”
If that’s not enough, Latitude has just released several new watches that have functions even more esoteric than the ones already mentioned. Their Gamma Master is made for pilots, medical practitioners and security personnel who might be exposed to Gamma-radiation. The watch detects the Gamma-radiation with a Geiger-Muller tube. Firmware inside the watch measures both the dose equivalent rate (DER) and the dose equivalent (DE) values for Gamma-radiation exposure. The user can preset DER and DE audible alarms.
Latitude’s Heart Meter watches are actually heartbeat calculators for serious fitness enthusiasts or for individuals with health concerns.
The advanced electrocardiography (ECG) technology in the watch allows the wearer’s heart rate to be measured within the range of 40-200 beats per minute — with no chest strap required. The watch tracks 20 separate records so a physician can clearly see the wearer’s heart rate history.
If you’re not inclined toward sports and you don’t have any medical problems, Latitude still might have a watch that you’d find essential. Their Tech Pro series of full color watches can help keep track of your days and nights. That’s mostly because everything you need to know about your life is strapped to your wrist.
With a built-in infrared data exchange function, records, pictures and melodies can be transferred between mobile phone, PC and PDA. The watch can hold 10 pictures and 15 mini melodies (112 notes each). The Tech Pro also has a scheduler, phone book, timekeeper, stopwatch, alarm and calendar.
If all this watch talk is becoming overwhelming, believe me, if you’d been at the Watch and Clock Fair, you’d have thought that watches were gearing up to take over the world. At the exhibition, I even stumbled across a company that wanted their watches to take over your will. Innomind International manufactures a Robotic Watch. The purpose of this digital timepiece is to make decisions for its wearer. Whenever the wearer doesn’t know what to do, he just presses a button on the watch and a pointer in the display will buzz back and forth until it eventually lands on either “yes” or “no.” The wearer should act — or not act — accordingly.
Just as I was leaving the Innomind booth, their director, James Lau, hurried over to show me the ultimate watch for the total tech head.
When I first looked at it, I couldn’t understand how this device was displaying the time. A mini circuit board was clearly visible through the watch face. On the circuit board was written the word “hour” with four tiny lights lined up in a row underneath. That row was followed by another row of six tiny lights with the word “minute” written underneath. Lau pressed a button on the watch and some of the lights glowed red.
The Innomind director informed me that pattern of the lights indicated the time. Seeing that I was completely confused he got out his pen and drew a diagram.
“This is our Binary LED Watch,” he explained. “It shows the time using a binary representation. If you recall your basic computing, a binary number is a number written in base two. This means that the digit in each position represents a particular power of two. For the top row or hour row of the watch, reading from the right, the first light represents the number 1. The second light represents the number 2. The third light stands for 4 and the fourth light is 8. For the bottom row or the minutes row, the six lights from right to left represent numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32. To calculate the time, add together the values of the glowing red lights in the hour and minute rows. The time showing on our watch here is 12:23.”
As Lau finished his commentary on the Binary Watch, he looked over at me curiously. Frankly, at that moment I’m sure I appeared to be slightly ill. I definitely needed one of those watches that measured heart rate because mine was pounding. I could just imagine rushing about on a very tight schedule and trying to get my frazzled brain cells to add up, with just a glance, exactly what time it was according to my Binary Watch!
In any case, since we are on the track of giving definitions for things such as binary numbers, let’s also take a moment and clarify the meaning of the title for the column “WYSIWYG,” which appears on the Compunet pages every week. So many e-mails have come about this subject that it’s getting to be monotonous cutting and pasting the same explanatory paragraph over and over.
WYSIWYG (pronounced whizzy-wig) stands for “What You See Is What You Get” and refers to any technology that allows images to be viewed on a computer’s monitor exactly as they will appear when printed out.
WYSIWYG editors are programs that enable web pages to be made without the bother of hand-coding them in HTML. These editors allow web pages to be put together by dragging images around a page and typing in regular text. Developers using WYSIWYG editors can think entirely in terms of how the content should appear. The editing program translates the chosen layout into HTML.
The Arab News column WYSIWYG, features online resources that in some way focus on the Middle East. Be assured that if you click to the specified URL, what you saw in the newspaper column is certainly what you’ll get on your computer’s screen.
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