LAS VEGAS — Jeffrey Hsieh was inspired by the success of Apple's Siri to bring Dick Tracy's dreams to life.
Siri, of course, is the talking personal assistant for the iPhone, and Dick Tracy is the newspaper comics page detective with a bag of high-tech tricks, including a wristwatch communications device.
Hsieh is here at the Consumer Electronics Show with his Martian Watches —a line of "voice command" watches that read back your texts while you're driving, alert you to who is calling, and let you answer calls, thanks to wireless Bluetooth technology.
The watches support voice control on both the Apple iOS and Android platforms. They have a little screen across the bottom of the dial, like the news ticker on TV, that alerts you to who is calling and gives previews of text messages.
Hsieh got to CES by way of Kickstarter, the crowd-funding website that lets anyone raise money for their dreams. He picked up $220,000 and 112 backers.
"We knew the world didn't need another wireless cellphone headset," Hsieh said on Kickstarter. "Our idea? "Why not a Bluetooth voice command WATCH?"
His backers will get the first watches produced, then sales will open to the public. They start at $299 and begin shipping in February.
When Apple introduced Siri, "We realized it would be a cool idea to integrate that onto a voice command watch, as well, so it's an extension of the smartphone," Hsieh says.
Hsieh is based in Irvine, Calif., where he's been a long-time developer of Bluetooth-related services.
He says he wouldn't have been able to do the watch as recently as three years ago, but advancements in faster mobile broadband and speech recognition make it a reality today.
Source: http://www.news.theusalinks.com/2013/01/08/martian-voice-command-watch-answer-calls-on-your-wrist/
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