After a long, painful, nearly anonymous ride on the wrists of a select few uber-geeks, Microsoft's finally throwing in the towel on one of its longstanding pet projects: the SPOT watch. Those who've followed the technology recently (you know who you are) already know that the writing's been on the wall for some time; the applications and content available to the watches haven't been updated in ages, and indeed, the entire line of Abacus Smart Watch 2006 models -- the only type being recently offered -- has been discontinued and out of stock for a few months. For what it's worth, MSN Direct's program manager is quick to note that the underlying technology most certainly isn't going away; quite the contrary, in fact, with compatible Garmin and Windows Mobile products still going strong. Though your impetus may have been misguided and your fate sealed from the moment you hit the market, dearest wristwatches, your overwhelming nerdiness will be sorely missed. Oh, and for those of you who plan on sporting your piece of Microsoft history to the very bitter end, take some comfort in knowing that existing content types will continue to be delivered, at least.
[Via: Engadget ]
Wow, it looks like someone was listening when we said that Pivot wasn't going anywhere just an hour ago -- Comcast, Time Warner (Engadget's parent company) and Cox have all confirmed to the AP that they've backed out of the quad-play partnership, leaving Sprint alone to awkwardly hang out with Advance / Newhouse, which declined to comment. That must be a fun party. Of course, this also means both of the partnerships Sprint and Big Cable got into have now failed, but that doesn't mean the competition in the space is over: both Time Warner and Cox say wireless is still in the cards for their companies, but Pivot was just too complicated a venture. Comcast hasn't said anything yet, but promised a comment tomorrow sometime between 7AM and 11PM.
[Via: Engadget ]