Ever since Microsoft announced its intentions to put its software into phones, TVs and cars we've had to suffer the lamest jokes about phones, TVs and cars offering Blue Screens of Death (BSODs). We deplore this kind of unimaginative humor.

However Peter Rysavy, who runs a couple of community sites, one for Tablet PCs and a sideline on Microsoft's SPOT watches, has been having trouble with one of his. SPOT stands for 'Smart Personal Object Technology'.

"Take off a sweater. Touch a thermostat. Have a co-worker touch your watch. All of those actions can at least temporarily disable your Abacus watch," he writes.

Help is at hand, however. Peter found a way to revive the watch that DOS veterans will find reassuringly familiar:

"I tried the three-finger salute for the Abacus (push all three buttons on the right side - I'm not sure if it's the same for all the other watches) to reboot it, but nothing much seemed to happen. The watch eventually turned back on a few minutes later. "

Peter had lost his data, and the watch had reset itself to midnight on January 1st. A year and a bit into the great SPOT experiment, some fixes are needed.

"The last thing we need is for them to turn off for 15 minutes every time it gets cold and we get a little static electricity buildup," Peter concludes.

Microsoft isn't alone: today it emerged that Fossil's PalmOS smartwatch had been canned. And naturally, we'll shun the opportunity to perpetuate juvenile gags about downtime, BSODs and three fingered salutes. ®

However, if it happened to you, it may look something like this:

Related Stories

Microsoft Spot watches delayed
Fossil revamps MS Spot watch line