The Fossil Wrist PDA: Grand-Daddy of Modern Smartwatches. Or, "How I Accidentally Learned What Mormonism is".
Buckle up, it's story time. The year is 2002. I'm 17 years old and obsessed with mobile computing. It's a flashy new thing in 2001, I already have a Palm Pilot but lust after versions with color screens, especially Pocket PC. However, something new appears on the market which catches my eye.
In 2001, Fossil Group released its first 8 bit, monochrome smartwatch. Really just an organizer like those previously available before PDAs properly came into their own. You couldn't even enter data into it, just access stuff like stored phone numbers and addresses.
But it was a COMPUTER on your WRIST! Obviously for that reason alone, I had to have it. Luckily for me Fossil was already struggling, so these things could be had for a bargain even 1 year after release. In 2003 they would release the successor, which I later got for Christmas: A full fledged Palm OS device in wristwatch form:
That wasn't for another year though. While I had the Fossil version 1, I enjoyed it mostly for the "I'm living in the future" feeling. I barely used it for anything. It sure ate up batteries too, burning through two CR2032 hearing aid batteries in a couple of weeks. This is the single biggest reason why it didn't get used much.
The other reason was that 17 year old me didn't have many friends or a job, and thus no obligations. As a result I didn't need to remember more than 2 or 3 phone numbers. The one feature the Fossil had that was actually kind of neat was the ability to sync data with Palm Pilots.
It could actually do this with Palm Pilots OR Pocket PCs, but if you wanted to do it with a Pocket PC you needed a different version of the watch. It didn't just have baked in support for both, which would've been more sensible and broadened the appeal.
The thing is...it would sync the data, downloading all the contacts, phone numbers, addresses and notes (!) without any sort of security protection. There wasn't any warning on the device you synced with to notify the owner that a transfer was happening.
So while sitting on the light rail train across from an important looking dude in a suit, I noticed he was tapping away on his palm pilot. A sneaky plan entered my head. On my watch I initiated a sync, and pointed the IR transceiver at his device.
To my surprise, it worked. I got a deluge of data from his device without his noticing. Data I then began to read through right in front of him as he sat there, none the wiser. Only...it was weird. The notes were all about "elders" and "temple recommends" and shit.
I stole a glance at him. He looked normal and sane. So what the fuck was all this dungeons and dragons, larper type language in his PDA? I read more. What the fuck is "sealing"? What the fuck is a "quorum"? Page after page of notes about this guy's personal life laden with strange words and phrases.
I deleted it all, mostly scared I had stumbled across some kind of secret society and not wanting any evidence of my trespass. Google later clarified the meaning of the terms for me, I'd simply been seated opposite a Mormon. I didn't know they used so many shibboleths and mostly thought of them as just another denomination of Christianity until then.
Once the fear subsided, I felt like I'd done something covert and sophisticated. Like I was James Bond, or some sort of high level, elite hacker. When you're 17, even something silly like that makes you feel like a badass.
Stay Cozy!
Wow! great stuff
@alexbeyman,
Once I had a wrist watch which could used to change TV channels! At that time it was like a magic! Now I am not using a watch either! Coz I got my phone in pocket always!
Cheers~
So you were technically a hacker at age 17. Interesting.
Alex - That abcus wrist watch looks like the ancestor of Nokia phone OS... It has a lot of similarities & I had that type of menu in my previous phone... Nice article young man...
+W+
It's really a strange and wondrous feeling when you suddenly gain access to data not meant for you, isn't it?
That's really cool, though. I can imagine 17-year-old me trying to contain my ebullience had I performed a hardware data hack like that.
You should see what you can see running a tool called Wireshark near an open wifi hotspot, though. Yikes. You can sniff basically all unencrypted traffic between the router and whomever is accessing it. In the years since I've been working in network security, there are a number of similar eye opening moments I've had. The scary part is most of these tools are free and not that challenging to use.
While smartphone security has improved by leaps and bounds, especially in the last 3-4 years, its still shocking what you can do when someone leaves their bluetooth/wifi radios on. I'll say no more here, except issue a gentle recommendation for all to turn those off if you're not actively using them.
Now I really want to see a true, functioning tricorder like in the original Star Trek. There's been a decent attempt or two, but I want something that does more than report temp/pressure or other basic trivialities. I want to see active scanning, 3d mapping, x-ray type vision through solid objects, basically the kind of magic that those devices did on the TV show. That would make me feel like I'm living in the future. Kickstarter, anyone?
We're getting closer.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/technology/these-er-docs-invented-real-star-trek-tricorder-n755631
I don't know... Maybe I became old, but the tech today is not as cool as it used to be. Some 10-15 years ago, every new gadget was something revolutionary, something from the SF. And now... Well, it has 4x more memory. And the camera is a bit better, in some situations. And look, this special edition is black...
Yeah, I was just thinking the other day about how much improvement there was to videogames between 1993 and 1998. We went from 16 bit sidescrollers on SNES to Half Life in those 5 years.
Meanwhile, there hasn't really been much graphical improvement to 3D engines since Crysis, which came out in 2007. That's 11 years without much progress to show for it.
Those were the days...
Really its mother of all the watches.
In a age of 17, you done a great job.
Although at present the boys of the 17 years old so advanced in technology.
Sometimes I wish I was about 8 years older so I could have experienced these times for what they were. I was too young at the time though to care about computers at all. Not that that was a bad thing- just that I wish I could have gone through this phase haha
Waoh, nice reminisce at childhood, too is then, it was a cloth with the latest star inscribed on it that makes it for us, Ironman, Spiderman etc and cartoon famous creation. Whenever you're wearing that cloth/wear, you'll feel on top of the world among your peers.