circuits.

• Author: LEWIS, PETER H.
• Position: Miniature wrist devices - Brief Article

Dick Tracy was first. But soon, we'll all be able to talk into our watches as well as take photos, listen to music, and watch TV.

It took more than half a century, but the consumer model of the Dick Tracy two-way wrist radio is almost here. With the relentless miniaturization of technology, the time has come for wrist devices that have function lists as long as your arm: Depending on design, they double as cell phones, one-way pagers, email readers, computers, cameras, MP3 music players, television receivers, voice recorders, automobile security keys, television and VCR remote controls, health monitors, weather stations, compasses, Global Positioning System monitors, games, and simple amusements. Some can even serve as admission passes for ski lifts and museums. And, almost as an afterthought, they tell time.

WRIST AS REAL ESTATE

Following the example of the pocket watch, which first moved to the wrist less than a century ago, more than a dozen different types of electronic gadgets are adding straps and competing for space on the narrow stretch of body between the hand and the forearm. Until the time when such devices are implanted directly into the brain, which is still some years away, the wrist is the most convenient place on the body to wear technology. It does not encumber the hand, does not intrude on most manual tasks, moves easily in front of the eyes and is easier to reach than, say, the ankle.

"It's location, location, location," says Susie Watson, a spokesperson for the Timex Corporation. "The wrist is the most exciting and accessible place on the body."

Advances in circuitry have enabled these devices to shrink from handheld to belt-clip sizes, and the move to the wrist is seen as just another inevitable progression. As cell phones and other gadgets become even smaller, attaching a wristband may become a necessity to keep tiny phones and pagers from getting lost in a pocket or purse.

Both Motorola and Samsung recently demonstrated working prototypes of a digital phone watch--the closest thing yet to the fanciful two-way wrist radio worn on the comics pages by Dick Tracy, the detective whose fondness for exotic gadgets predated James Bond by a generation.

LIFE IMITATES COMICS

The two-way wrist radio made its debut in the comics in January 1946, says Max Allan Collins, who wrote the strip from 1977 to 1993. Collins says the strip's creator, Chester Gould, later said he had wanted Tracy to wear a wrist TV but that his...