Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Off the Spot?

A while ago, there was a lot of buzz about Microsoft's SPOT Technology. SPOT was an information delivery technology that used FM radio frequencies to send data updates to small devices like watches and clocks. In addition to getting atomic time, you could also get stock quotes, sports scores and the weather. While people initially greeted it with great fanfare, it seems to have fizzled out a little bit.

Yes, just like Microsoft always does, it seems to be fiddling with new uses for it, and maybe in the 3rd round of revisions they will get it right, but I wonder, will its promise be utilized? Melitta thinks so, they created a coffee maker with SPOT built-in to give you the weather and time along with your daily grind. I wonder what comes next for SPOT? I wonder if Microsoft has any SPOT announcements brewing (pun intended) for CES?

Regardless of the early adopter caché of such devices, will people really shell out $200 for a coffee maker that tells you the weather?

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