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Microsoft said to be working on its own smart watch

Microsoft said to be working on its own smart watch

By Surbhi Chawla | Updated: 15 April 2013 12:57 IST

Smart watches seem to have caught the fancy of all major technology companies, and Microsoft is the latest name to join the bandwagon.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft held talks with its suppliers in Asia at the beginning of the year to ship components for a potential smart watch device. The executive at a component manufacturer also mentioned that Microsoft has placed a request for 1.5-inch displays for this purported smart watch.

The report also mentions that Microsoft has so far declined to comment in regards to developing a smart watch.

It is noteworthy, that this is not the first time Microsoft is getting into the smart watch segment. In 2004, Microsoft had introduced a product named SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology) along similar lines. SPOT was a paid service which could send instant messages from Windows Messenger, news headlines, stock information, and weather forecasts. This project was cancelled in 2012 as it failed to garner much attention from the consumers.

Apart from Microsoft, LG, Samsung, Google and Apple are also said to be working on smart watch. As per earlier rumours, Google is developing a smart watch in its Android unit instead of its lab, which indicates that this device is beyond the prototype stage and may be launched soon.

Samsung, on the other hand is working on a smart watch as part of its Project J lineup. The Korean chaebol had even confirmed this news but did not revealed any further details. As per past rumours, Samsung's smart watch is likely to come with an arm band, will have the ability to bike mount and will come with a pouch as well. Some leaked screenshots of this watch surfaced online, which indicated that this smart watch is running on a beta version of the Altios OS.

According to grapevine, even Apple is working on smart watch, which might be called iWatch and is expected to release this year. Rumours also suggest that iWatch will run a full version of iOS and will incorporate task capabilities as seen on the iPhone and iPad including making calls, a caller ID feature, integrated pedometer for counting steps and sensors for monitoring health-related data, such as heart rate.

In the month of March, there were also rumours indicating that LG is looking to get into the smart watch space. Analysts too are pegging 2013 to be the year of smart watch. As per, Avi Greengart, analyst on consumer devices at the research firm Current Analysis the reason most technology companies are looking at the smart watches in 2013 is because now "the components have gotten small enough and cheap enough" to develop this device.

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