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.

The concept of a watch that does anything more than just display the time and date has so far been a commercially unsuccessful one. Plenty have tried to make gadget phones that people actually want to wear, but all have failed. The most recent attempt to do a gadget watch properly is Sony Ericsson and Fossil's MBW-100 Bluetooth watch, which PC Magazine recently reviewed. Rather than going all out and designing a watch with full PDA functions, the partner companies decided to design a watch that could display simple information -- caller ID, text messages -- sent to it from a Bluetooth enabled phone. It's this "watch first, gadget second" approach that gives the MBW-100 immediate appeal to non-geeks, but unfortunately this particular watch isn't going to usher in a new era where everyone wears such a device. The MBW-100 is too expensive ($399), too limited (it currently only works with Sony Ericsson phones), and is too bulky for mainstream appeal (men with skinny wrists need not apply), although it's the closest that anyone has come to successfully integrating gadget functions into a wrist watch without sacrificing style and the whole displaying-the-time thing. Hopefully future iterations will really get it right: watch this space for more.

Sony Ericsson and Fossil didn't just get their hands dirty with a single power-user Bluetooth watch, it turns out they have 'em for the unwashed masses as well. On the left we have the Fossil Caller ID FX6001, while they other two answer to ABACUS MobileWear AU6001 and AU6002. Unfortunately, these watches look to be lacking any sort of music playback controls, and are still beholden to Sony Ericsson compatibility -- though it doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to hack up a phone from a different manufacturer for some Bluetooth watch fun. The good news is that these watches are headed straight for the States, on the cheap. The FX6001 will be available in late October for $250, while the AU6001 and AU6002 will be out in mid-October for $200, with some UK and Germany availability as well. Friends, these are good days to be in possession of a wrist.

We're just not sure what there isn't to love about Sony Ericsson and Fossil joining forces to bust out sexy Bluetooth watches. The duo's new MBW-100 effortlessly pulls off that "I'm probably a secret agent, but I don't need to parade it around" look that we've been trying to pull off ever since we can remember, and the watch packs in some useful Bluetooth 2.0 stuff as well. First off, there's a straight-up analog watch face, which keeps this thing classy, while a small OLED display below helps you manage the Bluetooth functions, shows incoming caller and notifies you of new SMS messages. If receiving a call, you can tap a button to silence the phone ringer, twice to reject the call, while another button handles play/pause and track skipping on your music player. The stainless steel watches will come in the silver color pictured, along with a limited-edition black version, and Sony Ericsson hopes to be shipping these globally Q4 2006 for around 300 Euros ($382 US). Keep reading for a few hugemongous pics and a pre-release user guide snippet we got our hands on.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:

Watch maker Fossil was among the first companies to support MSN Direct, the smart objects technology first offered by Microsoft in a number of timepieces. Earlier this year, the company, through its Abacus brand, revisited the technology in its Abacus Smart Watch 2006.

While the watch is still on the bulky side, it's slimmed down a bit and Fossil has used a sloping profile to minimize the watch's girth. In fact, the Abacus 2006 was no thicker than a workaday Seiko men's watch I purchased last year. Other improvements include more memory and the inclusion of a year of MSN Direct service. Abacus offers the watch with a metal band that nicely complements the watch's masculine design for $179, as well as a number of leather straps. Unlike nearly any other consumer product that includes Microsoft software, it has nary a trace of Microsoft branding.

Like all of the MSN Direct watches, the 2006 Abacus uses FM radio technology to communicate updates to the device. After activating the timepiece, you choose content channels from a Microsoft Web site. The content has diversified considerably from when the watch was first launched, but it's still mostly focused on the basics, including a variety of different "faces" -- two of which I found attractive, three more of which were acceptable, and several of which were just hideous.

Even though Fossil has washed its hands of SPOT, Abacus, its "tech" brand, soldiers on. Some shady character was trying to hawk these to us at CES, but it looks like Abacus' next attempt at MSN Direct will debut in more official channels starting next month. Besides being incrementally prettier than their last round, the Smart Watch 2006 is available in a wider variety of styles, has twice the memory, and is alleged to download data faster from the SPOT network. What may not have occurred to Abacus, however, is that a cheesy black-and-white digital watch face is a cheesy watch face at any speed. We'll wait for SPOT 2.0, thanks.

[Via SpotStop]

The last time we heard anything about the OnHand wrist PDA was probably close to two years ago. So, given its almost complete lack of marketing, distribution, buzz or sales, we're not exactly surprised that manufacturer Matsucom has decided to call it quits and stop producing the device, which managed to incorporate a full set of PDA functions into a fairly ugly watch. The OnHand was hobbled not just by a laissez-faire approach to marketing and a poor design, but by its use of proprietary technology and limited PC support (despite being introduced in 2003, it used a serial cable instead of USB). The small OnHand community did come up with some decent hacks, including a GPS hookup and an external keyboard, but that wasn't enough to keep this going. If you're still dying to get a wrist PDA, though, all hope isn't lost. Despite constant rumors of its death, Fossil's Palm-based Abacus wrist PDA is still available from TigerDirect for about $50.