Linux Watch (WatchPad™)

In August 2000,  a team of IBM researchers, with skills in hardware design, operating systems, displays, electronic and mechanical packaging, industrial design, and user interface design  that was spread across multiple IBM Research sites worked together to develop a wrist watch prototype that runs Linux and X11. This team was led by Chandra Narayanaswami, and worked for about eighteen months to accomplish this feat.  Here is some news and  some pictures of our prototype watch. IBM has thus demonstrated the viability of Linux across a wide range of platforms from large enterprise servers to medium-sized and small servers, workstations, desktops, laptops and now a small intelligent device.

Though the set of software and hardware components we have developed have presently been packaged in a high function wrist watch prototype, they can be utilized in several other small and wearable form factors.

Timeline:

May 2004: IBM demonstrates Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) on the watch.

Mar 2004: IBM demonstrates the symbiosis between the LinuxWatch and the EveryWhere Displays at Percom 2004.

May 2003: IBM demonstrates Mobile Web Services on the Linux Watch at the first MobiSys conference in San Francisco.

Aug 2002:  IBM demonstrates mobile IPv6 on the Linux Watch at Linux World 2002 in San Francisco

Oct 2001:  Citizen Watch and IBM Research announced that they have started a research collaboration on the Linux Watch technology.  More details can be found here.

Mar 2001: Linux Watch is shown at CeBIT. The interaction between the watch and IBM WebSphere software is shown. Several tens of thousands of visitors, including, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, see the watch.

Jan 2001:  IBM and eMagin Corporation demonstrate a high resolution Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display for the Linux Watch at the Consumer Electronics show  in Las Vegas.  More details can be found here.

Dec 2000: IBM demonstrated the Linux Watch with Bluetooth^™ capabilities at Bluetooth^™ Developers Conference 2000 in San Jose, CA.

Aug 2000:  At Linux World 2000 in San Jose, IBM Research demonstrates Linux on a wrist watch.  This illustrates value of Linux across many platforms, including pervasive devices.  More technical details can be found here.

Linux is registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.   The Bluetooth trademarks are owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. U.S.A. and used by  IBM under license. WatchPad is a trademark of IBM.

Page was last updated in May, 2004.