Microsoft and Swatch Offer Thinner Wireless Watch Designs

Microsoft and Swatch Offer Thinner Wireless Watch Designs
Microsoft and watch maker Swatch are offering a new line of wireless data watches, the companies said Wednesday, bringing the era of Dick Tracy wristwatch radios one step closer.

The watches offer news, sports, weather and stock quotes, among other snippets of content, via Microsoft's MSN Direct wireless data service. Twice the number of information channels of earlier Microsoft-based models are available.

Known as the "Paparazzi" line, the computerized Swatches also offer local entertainment updates through a deal with publisher Time Out.

The watches come with three levels of service. Each comes free with local weather, news headlines and stock index levels. For $40 a year, users can receive more weather data, personalized news and sports scores, stock quotes, horoscopes and the like. For $60 annually, they can receive instant messages and calendar reminders from their PC if they use Microsoft Outlook software.

Microsoft and Swatch began work on watches three years ago.

"This is a new way of getting information," Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, told a news conference.

"It's glanceable information and it's a combination of the two things that I think people really care about — fashion, something that's fun and exiting, and technology that brings them personal information," he sai