First a funny story. When I was in graduate school in Berkeley, a friend was defending his Master's thesis. At one point, a professor asked him a question that stumped him. What would you do?
He did something that one could get away with in California. He stopped, stared at the walls and said, "Is that an earthquake?" While everyone debated whether they had felt a tremor, he gathered his thoughts and soon he was ready to answer the question, which he answered correctly, by the way.
An innovative product under development brought that story to mind. Citizen Watch and Royal Watch companies are developing a new watch, the Earthquake Early Warning Watch. It functions as an ordinary analog watch until it receives a signal from Japan's Earthquake Early Watch system. Then it kicks into gear, literally. The hour hand speeds up to correlate to the estimated seismic intensity while the second hand functions as a countdown to the estimated arrival time based upon the watch-wearer's location. The watch can also emit an alarm or vibrate. Wow!
So let's analyze this from through the lens of innovation. First, the EEW watch was the product of a partnership between two Japanese companies, the well-known Citizens Watch and lesser-known Rhythm Watch Co. Secondly, the watch was not an entirely new product. In fact, it could be considered a retro product since it leverages what is considered by many to be outdated technology - hour and second watch hands. Yet, something new was added as well, a receiver that provides life-saving information.
Want to know where earthquakes are occurring right now, even without an EEW watch? Check out this link to see earthquakes detected in the last week.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment