Gizmodo: timepiece

Iron Samurai Watch for the Budget Conscious and Style Averse

Dan Nosowitz — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:20:00 EST

The Iron Samurai watch, a spectacularly ugly bracelet-style watch made from "Samurai sword carbonized steel folded 1000x over," is available from Chinavision for a questionable $15. It also comes with one of the weirdest/funniest product descriptions I've ever seen.

The watch, a form of which we've previously seen as a concept, hides red LEDs inside the pattern of the bracelet, which is kind of cool in theory but dorktacular in practice. Some highlights from the bizarre product description:

[It has] blood red numerals encased in stark samurai sword steel like the final battle between all the forces of good and evil in the multiverse

Yes, The Iron Samurai has been known to increase its wearers' strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma by as much as 20 points each! Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal are said to be Iron Samurai owners, as is David Bowie and Brian Eno. In reality, this watch is perfect for Presidential dinner crashers, Facebook celebs with over 1000 fans, Youtube directors with over 2,000,000 views, anyone who can play the entirety of Neil Zaza's I'm Alright on electric guitar, iPhone 3Gs owners, or anybody who is a somebody.

Yes, it's garish as all hell, but how many products can claim to be owned by both Steven Seagal and Brian Eno? [OhGizmo]

Gizmodo Gallery's Kisai Tenmetsu Tokyoflash Watch Can Now Be Yours

Elaine Chow — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:30:00 EST

Gizmodo Gallery visitors got a great sneak peek at Tokyoflash's new watch, the Kisai Tenmetsu, which presents time using tri-colored LEDs in Tokyoflash's per usual esoteric fashion. If that floated your boat, it's available now on the company's website.

Kind of like a cross between the Tokyoflash Fire and Denshoku, each of the three colors—red, amber and green—represents a unit of time and the hours, minutes, month and day flash by in sequence. Red LEDs are 15 units, amber LEDs indicate five units, and green LEDs equal one unit. [Tokyoflash]

Tokyoflash Fire Watch Looks Hot, But Useless For Telling Time

Elaine Chow — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:00:00 EST

Now that more or less everyone uses cellphones to tell the time, watches have been relegated to mere decorative pieces. At least that's what it seems like with Tokyoflash's watches, which look great but are nigh-impossible to read. It's latest watch, Fire, is a beautiful streamlined little thing that wraps around your wrist and flashes multi-colored LED lights to tell the time. Each hole indicates one unit of time—yellow LEDs are the hours, red LEDs show every ten minutes and green LEDs show single minutes—not that you'd ever take the effort needed to figure that out. The cost for this man jewelry? $130. [TokyoFlash]

Five-Faced Diesel Watch: Screw You, Midwestern States

Sean Fallon — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:00:00 EDT

So, what if you don't live in the same time zone as New York, LA, Tokyo, Paris or London? Well, that means this Diesel Timepiece would be nothing more to you than a gaudy way to buff up your watch arm. Fortunately, a thinner, daintier version exists for those wishing to forgo the pre-ordained cities for five choices of your own. All you have to do is remember which one is which. Available for $550 and $495 respectively.

[Diesel via Technabob via Boing Boing Gadgets]

USB Watch is Deconstructed Electronic Geekiness In Action

Kit Eaton — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:09:00 EDT

This concept USB watch, dubbed "Timeless" is either a fabulously ironic piece of deconstructivist electronic art, or a geeky overload. Whichever way you look at it, it's kinda neat: basically it's a simple digital watch, with an internal battery that's charged when you plug it into a USB socket. And then the same USB socket plugs back into the watch face, secured with PCB mount-style latches, with the ribbon cable as a strap. It's a concept... but I could rattle off a pretty long list of people I know who'd probably love to own one. [DesignBrothers via CoolestGadgets]

Bulova Watch Lost at Sea During WW2 Reunited with Owner After 67 Years, Still Ticking

AddyDugdale — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:45:00 EDT

A Royal Navy veteran has been reunited with his watch, 67 years after he lost it during World War II—and, it worked perfectly. In 1941, Teddy Bacon, a lieutenant aboard HMS Repulse, was throwing a line from ship to shore when the gold Bulova watch, bought in the Azores for $55, slipped off his wrist and into Gibraltar Harbor. The timepiece was never found, until the harbor was dredged, seven decades later.

After seeing his watch splosh into the water, Teddy sent down a couple of divers to search for it, but without any luck. So, he informed the deputy harbor-master who logged the missing object. Fast-forward to 2007, and the watch turned up during the dredging of the harbor. When the authorities checked the log, they found Teddy's claim, and sent the watch, still ticking, off to him. Now 90 years old, the reitred sailor couldn't believe his eyes when a package containing his gold watch arrived at his new home.

'To say I was stunned could be considered a major understatement,' he said. "It truly was a miracle that I had been reunited with that watch after a lifetime. Now I wear it every day and it keeps perfect time, even after all those years in the water. It is absolutely excellent and I consider it a long-lost friend.'" [Daily Mail]

Cuckinetic Clock Tells Time Rube Goldberg-Style

Kit Eaton — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:45:02 EDT

I'm always fascinated by kinetic sculptures, which is why I like this clock by painter and sculptor George Rhodes. You tell the hours from the numbered cylinders that're picked up on that wheel, and the minutes from the pointer arm. It strikes the hours when the cylinder rolls down the track and hits a bell. I'd love to see it in action, but since it's a limited edition of 50, costing $4,000, there's not much chance of that. If you do bag one of these 17-pound creations, it's signed by the artist himself. [George Rhodes via BBGadgets]

Build Your Own Tokyoflash-esque Binary Watch

Kit Eaton — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:42:31 EST

DIY gadgeteer Nate True has come up with a home-brew LED watch alternative to those Tokyoflash wristwatches that are all the rage. A mashup of a binary clock and one of those nifty persistence-of-vision displays, Nate's device even packs in a super-bright flashlight mode. You can follow his instructions to make your own, or if your soldering is as bad as mine you can buy a pre-built one for $189, and one lacking the enclosure for $89. [cre.ations.net via BoingBoing]

Watch Concept Gives Hearing-Impaired People a Fire Alert

Kit Eaton — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:27:09 EST

This new watch concept from Nikita Golovlev is designed to give a visible warning to hearing-impaired users if something dangerous is going on nearby. Dubbed AlarMe, the watch has a bunch of omnidirectional microphones and does some intelligent listening to sense if anything audibly important such as a fire alarm is happening. It then gives the alert visually and by vibrating, sending "caution" alerts when something more benign happens.

We suspect a lot of processor power may have to be squeezed into a watch to give the caution function any usefulness, but as a design touchstone it's pretty neat and is a step toward medical devices that look good as well as help people. [Yanko Design]