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This is old news, but Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin commemorated their 250th anniversary last year by launching a wrist watch with the greatest number of complications. The dual-face Tour de I’lle has a total of 16 complications, 834 parts, with a price of 1876250 CHF at auction.

The functions are impressive, but want for a chronograph:
1. Hours and minutes 2. Seconds at 6 o’clock
3. Repitition of hours, quarters, minutes on request 4. Tourbillion device
5. Power reserve 6. Second time zone
7. Phases and age of the moon 8. Striking-mechanism torque
9. Day of the week 10. Date
11. Month 12. Leap years
13. Perpetual equation of time 14. Sunrise
15. Sunset 16. Sky chart.

The Tour de I’lle is truly a beautiful watch, with good detail and liberal use of rose and white gold, but VC is curiously politically incorrect via their use of the Maltese Cross on the crown & Tourbillion.

Vacheron Constantin – website

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Here’s another kick at the eBook can – iRex Technologies announced their ER 0100 eBook last year (Sept ‘05), and plans to roll them out next month (Apr ‘06). The “iLiad” is spec’d out at 8.1 inches 1024 x 768 pixels 16 grey-level monochrome electronic paper display, weighs in at 390 grams (0.86 lbs) and sizes out to 155×217x16 mm (6 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches). Battery lasts 1+ weeks at 3 hrs usage per day.

The attached image shows the new and old technologies competing head-to-head. From a usability perspective, real paper is best for now … however, that dynamic is changing rapidly as evidenced by the following headline in the New York Times (real) newspaper dated March 14, 2006: “The Times to End Daily Stock Listings in April and Expand Data on Web Site ” … eventually there will be no choice, as paper goes the way of vellum and the venerable clay tablet.

iRex Technologies – homepage

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Lenovo has a new digital music player, the Easy Cube M500.

The M500 is quite mobiBlu-esque, right down to rounded corners of it’s similarly-cubic competition, the DAH-1500i. Lenovo however has replaced the display screen with a speaker, ramped up the dimensions to 70 mm (2.75 in) cubed, thrown in 4 AA batteries and an SD/MMC expansion slot. Supports constant/variable bit rates of 32Kbs to 320 Kbps, MP3 & WMA formats. Inexpensive at 499 Yuan / $62.

Market segment seems to be the cost-avoiding, headphone-averse, immobile tier.

Lenovo Easy Cube M500 – product homepage

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Gartner Inc. had a look at the just-released Origami Ultra Mobile PC devices, and decided to demur.

While the Gartner reviewers declare these new Origami Tablets to be ‘promising’, they go on to add that today’s hardware cannot deliver on that promise. They cite the low battery life (3.5 hrs), the high price ($799+), the large-ish form factor and the awkward text entry (via thumbs) as the main reasons for their lack of endorsement. Their advice: wait for the UMPC platform to mature.

UMPC Platform Has Promise but Is Far From Mature – Gartner, 14 Mar 2006

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infoSync World gives us their take on the ten best gizmos to be found at the just-finished CeBIT 2006 in a just-published article. The list is Samsung-heavy, but includes the requisite variety of offerings from other manufacturers. The reviewers especially liked the Nokia N92 smartphone for its digital TV reception, the “glorious” 2.8 inch QVGA screen and its ability to record live TV. Other pluses included the 2MP camera, the connectivity (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and IR), the memory card slot and support for MP3, WMA and AAC music file formats. In fact, they seemed to like the N92 a lot.

1. Nokia N92

2. Creative Zen Vision:M
3. Sony Ericsson W950i
4. Samsung Q1
5. T-Mobile MDA Vario II
6. Fujitsu Siemens LifeBook Q2010
7. Samsung SCH-B600
8. Panasonic 103-inch Plasma TV
9. Samsung YM-PD1
10. ASUS Lamborghini VX1 laptop

The top 10 gadgets of CeBIT 2006 – infoSync World, 15 March 2006

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Toshiba showed a new dual-display eBook reader at CeBIT 2006. Storage is via an SD memory card or the built-in 1.8 inch hard disk. No word yet on screen-res, battery life, DRM or options for content management.

This new Toshiba eBook is a relaunch/rebranding of the Toshiba SD-Book circa 2003-2004.

Toshiba eBook – Aving News, 2006-03-16

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Forbes Magazine has come up with a list of the 20 most important tools ever invented. The list is heavily pre-industrial and decidedly non-electronic and could be considered a compendium of the coolest gadgets of the 18th century. Forbes selected the knife as the top tool, citing the it’s ability to cut, slash, spear, prick and to rent molecular bonds in general, as justification.

1. Knife

2. Abacus 3. Compass 4. Pencil 5. Harness
6. Scythe 7. Rifle 8. Sword 9. Eyeglasses 10. Saw
11. Watch 12. Lathe 13. Needle 14. Candle 15. Scales
16. Pot 17. Telescope 18. Level 19. Fish Hook 20. Chisel

In a humorous sidebar, they identify duct tape as the “other greatest tool“, remarking on it’s usefulness in joining things together…thus making it a kind of ‘anti-knife’, if you will.

The 20 Most Important Tools Ever – Forbes, 03.15.06

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We made note of Chi Mei Optoelectronics and their remarkable quadruple-HDTV LCD TV panel back in January. Well, they’re back with their 3840×2160 resolution model V562D1 TV at CeBIT 2006 and Trusted Reviews has a brief review and some images.

The TR article abounds in accolades and laments the lack of 4x HDTV content for viewing.

Chi Mei – Trusted Reviews, 15 Mar 2006

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Samsung is displaying it’s recently announced HL-S5679W LED DLP TV now at CeBIT 2006. The 56-inch 1920 x 1080p 1-chip DLP is the first to replace the color wheel & lamp with an LED light source. The LEDs deliver a better color gamut and a 10000:1 contrast ratio.

The $4,200 TV was declared the best TV at CES 2006 back in January, and will be available in April.

Samsung Launches World’s First LED Light Sourced DLP Rear Projection HDTV – Samsung Press Release

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LG Philips announced the world’s largest LCD TV – at 100 inches – a few days ago. The 7.2 x 4 ft HDTV panel offers has 3000:1 contrast ratio, better than 5ms response time and 6.2 million pixels. This new prototype is 50% larger than the previously largest LCD panel and is close to the 103 inch PDP panel announced by Panasonic back in January

LG.Philips Develops 100-Inch LCD – Korea Times, 03-08-2006

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