Chapter 10. Communicating with the Outside World

What is it that makes a smartwatch “smart”? When your authors were but young lads of fewer than 10 years, one had a digital watch that, as well as telling the current time in his chosen alternate time zone, had an alarm function, included a couple of very basic games, and could be used as a calculator—complete with a fiddly, rubbery keypad! Best of all—unless you were a schoolteacher, that is—it could be set to play two quick pips at the top of every hour.

At the time, that author and his peers thought that watch was pretty smart. (Let’s be honest. We still do.) But it was no smartwatch. The defining characteristic of the modern smartwatch is its communication with the outside world, particularly ...

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