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Watches built with Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) with MSN Direct Service first shipped a year ago. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week, the company and its partners unveiled slimmer, second-generation SPOT watches and even a wake-up-to-the-weather-forecast alarm clock with the technology.

SPOT watches use tiny, low-cost, very low power, and integrated FM radio receivers to push and display up-to-date personalized and location-specific information via MSN Direct. Original channels included news, weather information, stock quotes, personal messages, and calendar appointment reminders.

Since that time MSN Direct added sports scores, movie listings, trivia, horoscopes, and lottery results. Vendors selling SPOT watches include Fossil, Suunto, Swatch, and Tissot.

New Watches
At CES, Suunto demoed the Suunto n6hr Smart Watch, which features a heart-rate monitor and sports training tools—interval timers and training manager software—in addition to the available MSN Direct services. Sporting goods and consumer electronics stores in the United States should carry the $399 watch soon.

For its part, Fossil demoed two new ABACUS Wrist Net Smart Watches that will be available in two styles and feature new casings and an assortment of colorful integrated leather bands. Although pricing hasn't been released yet, products sold under the ABACUS brand tend to be cheaper than the company's eponymous brand.

Clocks
Together with Oregon Scientific, Microsoft's SPOT Group plans to develop a state-of-the-art weather station alarm clock powered by SPOT technology. The alarm clocks are slated to come in a variety of styles and price points, and will feature MSN Direct weather information such as the day's forecast, high and low temperatures, a three-day forecast, sunrise and sunset times, and more.


SPOT Oregon Scientific Weather Alarm Clock
(image from Engadget)

MZ Berger plans to add SPOT technology to its high-tech alarm and wall clocks under the Sharp brand name. These clocks include "atomic" and radio-controlled clocks, as well as multifunction alarms.