Seasoned Inventor Greg E. Blonder writes in about his concept watch called the “About Time” that does away with accuracy and only tells “approximate” time. “Most of the Swiss producers look somewhat askance when you suggest a watch that tells only *approximate* time”, he writes in. Digital precision, according to him, is not only unnecessary but a disadvantage. A more human time scale is an approximate phrase like “It’s about 1 pm” instead of a 12:58 am. “Digital watches make it all too easy to miss a meeting believing it is closer to noon than to one.” he adds. So instead of showing the accurate time, the About Time LCD displays the nearest hour in the center of the watch i.e. It’s about 1pm, It’s Around 6 o’clock, Slight After 3, Nearly 5 fourty five. etc.
The watch isn’t available commercially yet, but Greg hopes to have it out soon. When I first received this in my email, I sent Greg a link to a similar watch by Fossil to which he replied: “That’s disturbing, because I contacted Fossil twice about a license 4 years ago. But, as far as I can tell, the Gehry watch still displays “exact” time, just with phrases. My watch displays “approximate time”, with a wide variety of words and colloquialisms. As does the linear display- the idea is to break the tyranny of rigid time- “”its about half past 10″, rather than “27 past 10″.
related links
The About Time Watch
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For those of you using the Firefox browser, this method of timekeeping is available as an extension called “Fuzzy Time” which I’ve been using for about a week. It’s surprisingly effective.
Fuzzy Time Firefox Extension
Comment by John — 1/13/2006 @ 2:18 am
There’s an application for Mac OS X (and perhaps older versions as well) that’s been around for a long time that tells the time like this. Even if one has very little to do and plenty of time to do it in, this is a very annoying way to tell the time. http://www.objectpark.org/FuzzyClock.html
Comment by Evan — 1/13/2006 @ 4:41 am
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Pingback by Strukt’s Blog » Blog Archive » About Time — 1/17/2006 @ 3:07 pm
[…] Watch that tells approximate time; so when it’s 12:58 pm, the watch says, “It’s about 1 pm“. (via) […]
Pingback by jasonspage.net » Blog Archive » Talus watch. — 1/26/2006 @ 1:37 am
Some more original messages can be added. For example, “It’s 6 pm and you need more sex”. This way, when a lady asks the time, you can casually lift your sleeve and show her “the good news”.
A product must be fancy, top-quality, and most of all GREAT FUN. Where is the fun in watching the display and run to a meeting? The fun begins when a product can tell things that normally you wouldn’t say for various reasons.
Humans are emotional beings, and watches are not so emotional. The latter have a long way to go before they build a natural synergy with their owners.
Comment by George — 1/31/2006 @ 9:09 pm