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Casio’s low-power Bluetooth watch runs for two years on a button cell

Casio has put Bluetooth into a wristwatch. By itself, that’s not so much to talk about. But this is the low energy variant of Bluetooth 4, which means that the watch will run for two years on a coin-cell, just like any other wristwatch.

The G-Shock Bluetooth looks a lot like you’d expect — a chunky plastic sports watch, with added Bluetooth logos. The main schtick is that the watch will sync its clock with your cellphone. Because your phone updates its clock with network time, this should mean the watch is always accurate.

You’ll also get notifications of incoming calls, SMS and email, and if you lose your phone you can use the watch to activate an alarm or make it vibrate. This may not be as useful as it sounds, though, as the maximum range of low-energy Bluetooth is just 5 meters, which means you’ll still be wandering from room to room to find it.

The biggest problem, though, will be finding a Bluetooth 4 phone to pair it with. Once these become more common, though, who wouldn’t want a watch that could do all this and run for two years on a CR2032 battery? The super low power consumption alone means that Bluetooth notifications just got a whole lot more useful.

The watch should be in stores soon, for an unknown price.

Casio G-Shock Bluetooth Watch Revealed [A Blog to Read via Oh Gizmo]

See Also:

• Casio Makes Your Eyes Water with G-Shock Man-Box
• Crazy-Rugged Casio Is a Titan Among Tough Timepieces
• $200 Watch-Phone Is a Fun, Affordable Accessory
• World's 'Most Feature-Packed Watch' is Also its Ugliest
• Why Wristwatches Are Still Worth Watching

Rickshaw Bagworks, the San Francisco maker of messenger bags, computer sleeves and the Dodo Murse, has come out with its iPad 2 bag. It is much like Rickshaw’s Zero Messenger, only it has a padded sleeve at the front into which you can slip a naked or clothed iPad 2 (or iPad 1).

I have used the Zero Messenger in Performance Tweed fabric, so let me describe it. The Tweed is a dual-layer fabric made from recycled polyester, and it is quite ridiculously light. The fabric is thing and flexible enough to form itself to your shape, making in comfortable to wear right up until you stuff it far too full, and the bag is pretty much one big sack with a couple pockets at the front (one full length pocket divided vertically by stitching).

Closure is by velcro, and there are horizontal velcro strips running inside for attaching accessories (pockets and so on). The shoulder strap is somewhere in feel between soft seatbelt webbing and the too-stiff material used by Tumbuk2, and can be cinched up for cycling with a cam clamp. There are D-rings for attaching a cross strap.

I stand over six feet tall, and I’d appreciate a little extra length in the strap, but otherwise the light weight, comfy strap and generous interior make this a good everyday bag.

The iPad version is almost exactly the same, but is narrower, taller and has the padded section behind the front pockets.

The 10 x 11.25 x 3.75 inch bag weighs one pound, and costs $75. The medium messenger is $60 and weighs 1.25 pounds (and you can always just toss in an iPad in its own case). Available now.

Messenger Bag for iPad 2 [Rickshaw Bagworks]

See Also:

• Dodobag, a Murse to Hold Your Dodocase

Toilets, cows, and Germans have all been tagged by RFIDs, but according to a new study, it’s footwear and fashion that top the demand for radio-enabled tracking. In a report released yesterday, ABI Research said more than three-quarters of a billion RFID tags will be used in global apparel markets in 2011, with retailers like Walmart, Macy’s, and JC Penney leading the way. Item-level tracking isn’t new — in fact we saw something similar in 2006 — but with the likes of Walmart on board, the system is expected to grow as much as 60 percent in the next three years. The study suggests inventory and security as driving factors in the adoption of RFIDs, but we’ve got our suspicions. And anyway, we don’t want anyone to know how much we spent on that Material Girl leopard print shrug — not even a machine.

Item-level RFIDs get support from big retailers, track your every purchase originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 09:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LAS VEGAS — Xpand’s new universal 3D glasses not only adjust to suit the 3DTV you want to use them with: they also adjust to suit you. Dubbed “Youniversal”, the specs come in a range of sizes and can be further tweaked to change a numer of parameters.

Like other Xpand 3D glasses, these can be set to sync with any television that uses active-shutter 3D, and work with Bluetooth, RF, infra-red and DLP-link connections. Unlike other specs, these come with a companion smartphone app to tailor them for your eyes only.

Choose black, gray or red frames, and from two sizes, and fire up the app. You can adjust the glasses according to ambient brightness, whether you’re wearing prescription lenses already, and also the amount of the 3D effect – from in-your-face Jaws 3D-style to subtle Pixar’s Day & Night-style.

I like the look of these specs. They’re actually very similar to my everyday glasses. I do wonder how long it will take to get the ultimate in personalized 3D specs: prescription lenses.

Available April, price yet to be announced (but probably more than the regular $130 Xpand glasses).

Youniversal product page [Xpand via Harry McCracken]

See Also:

• Goofy Glasses Hold Key to 3-D's Future
• One Pair of 3-D Glasses to Bind Them All
• 3-D Tabletop Display Gets Rid of the Glasses

Gadget Lab’s speed-loving editor Dylan Tweney likes to run barefoot. Or at least he did, until the problems of loping shoeless around the trash strewn streets of San Francisco became obvious. The foot-shaped, glove-like Five Fingers shoes from Vibram are one option, but an even more minimal concept comes from designer Frieke Severs.

The Footsticker is a flexible plastic membrane that sticks to your skin like a, well, like a second-skin. There are three designs, each conceived for a different activity. The cream-colored yoga skins, for example, offer high-grip protection for the heel, big-toe and the pad immediately behind the big toe.

Other shapes stick on to protect your feet during dancing or “combat cardio”, stopping injury to the most used spots of the feet but letting the muscles and bones move over each other without restriction, one of the attractions of doing sports barefoot.

You probably wouldn’t want to stick these on for a jaunt downtown, though – a Tenderloin junkie’s discarded needle still has plenty of flesh to aim for, but for indoor sports they look great. An added bonus is that your feet stay cool, and you won’t stink the place up like you do with those old rotting sneakers of yours.

Footstickers – Independent graduation at Nike EMEA [Behance]

See Also:

• Plastic Gorilla Feet Give You Twinkle Toes
• Barefoot Running
• To Run Better, Start by Ditching Your Nikes
• Barefoot Running Without Freaky Footwear
• Barefoot Running Hits Its Stride