Watch as the future unfolds
Italian company i’m Watch has provided a perfect example of how media and technology are seamlessly converging with the launch of the first real smartwatch, writes Ilaria Bettinelli in Milan.
No more missed calls, or frantically searching for your smartphone in your bag or pocket: now there is i’m Watch. And it is an Italian creature, one of the Made in Italy products that again prove the adaptability of this wonderful “regardlessly optimistic” country.
After being presented at the last Las Vegas CES 2012, the company is now ready to sell its first i’m Watch models.
It looks like a combination between a high-class digital watch and an iPod Nano and allows you to make calls without taking your smartphone. It integrates speaker and microphone and enables you to make and access screen calls on the watch and receive text message notifications.
Very intuitive and simple, it is planned to be used as a watch and a phone, and can play music, video, record agenda and provide access to the Internet. And it is compatible with all Apps.
This smartwatch uses Android as an operating system, the great “rival” of Apple and iOS. But the company insists the device is not meant to replace the iPhone: in fact, it can directly manage the iPhone thanks to the Bluetooth communication and use of the new “Personal Hotspot” that Apple made available with its latest version, iOS 4.3.
I’mWatch features a 1.54 inches touchscreen, with a high resolution 240×240 TFT display and 4GB flash memory, and can connect to all the main OS (Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Bada, Symbian and Windows Phone).
The company describes the product as utilising Italian design and technology, with multitasking capability, ultra high-resolution, and a multi-touch screen on a curved surface.
The first smartwatch compatible with iPhone did not go unnoticed by Apple fans and technophiles.
But this “watch of the future” is just the latest example of a cultural and technological shift we are both experiencing and shaping: it represents another move toward technological convergence, participatory culture and collective intelligence.
You can check out this new “Made in Italy to the world” technology on the website.
