Review of the Swatch Paparazzi MSN Direct (SPOT) Watch

The watch can receive and display a surprisingamount of data within a fairly intuitive inte***ce. For instance, one ofthe top stories on my watch right now (split across six "screens")is "Iraqigovernment declares 60-day state of emergency; U.S. forces seize small sectionof rebel-held territory in Fallujah. The Iraqi government declared 6 daysof emergency rule throughout most of the country Sunday, and U.S. troopsseized a small section of territory in Fallujah ahead of an expected all-outassault on the guerrilla sanctuary." Not a bad piece of information, consideringI'm reading it off my watch.Stocks. If you're a stock junkie, this is a great channel,though don't depend on it when investing your life savings since you can'treally be sure when the data was last updated. I generally use it to getan idea of what the market is doing, which is good enough for me. You canadd up to 15 symbols to the stock channel to watch, and view trends overthe last week on a slick little chart.Calendar. Although you get the calendar itself for free,subscribing to MSN Direct allows you to synchronize Outlook appointments(and reminders) with your watch. I don't use Outlook, but if I did, thisfeature alone would be worth the price of admission. I think this is an extremelyuseful and innovative feature (I don't even use it, and it's one ofmy favorites). If you use this feature and/or receive MSN Messenger messageson your watch, and you are a traveler, be sure to let the MSN Direct serviceknow through your online account where you're going to be so it knows whereto broadcast your data.Whyis "instant" in quotes? You have to wait for the message to be routedto the radio tower, and for your watch to receive it via FM radio transmission. Needlessto say, it's not instant, however the messages do receive a high data priority,and do tend to be delivered in a very reasonable amount of time. I don'tuse MSN Messenger (I'm already packing a wireless AIM client), so this featureis lost on me, however if I did, I'd be all over it. Andno, you can't send instant messages from the watch -- just receive them. Youprobably wouldn't want to see how big the watch would have to be in order tobe able to transmit FM signals as well as receive them.Weather. Get current conditions, and three day forecasts. Verynice. You can add up to 10 additional cities around the world to monitor(called "My Cities"), and current conditions for 110 North Americanand 75 international cities are always available. Weather heads can nowsafely step away from their TVs.News. Great channel. Get several different typesof news (business, headline, international, technology, sports, entertainment,weather, local, and health) from several different configurable sources.You can also opt to receive news alerts which means you will receive messagesas important events unfold.