LEDs replace hands in bonkers Japanese watches
These watches may look as though they’re from a future era, but the LED-based timepieces could be just the thing to adorn your wrist and compliment your I-LUV-UNIX T-shirt.

Do you know what time it is?
Japanese firm Tokyo Flash has been selling an extensive range of LED watches locally for some time, but it’s now working with UK company Techdeals to encourage Brits into making one of life’s easiest everyday tasks more stylish but that much harder.
The Twelve 5-9 range uses a combination of 12 LEDs for the hour of the day, five LEDs for tens of minutes and nine LEDs for single minutes. There’s various models in this format, with one that looks as though its borrowed Knight Rider’s scanning light.

Barcode: the sum of various LEDs show the time
Alternatively, the Barcode range displays time like an abacus, using each LED ‘bead’ to represent five or ten units. You’ll have to be at the peak of your mental fitness, though, because you'll have to add all the LEDs values together to get the current time.

Retsu: LED lines tell the time
Another design, dubbed Retsu, has just one line of LEDs that stack up vertically against ascending digits. For example, an LED line extending to seven, then four and finally three means the time is 7.43, but leaves the AM or PM decision up to the wearer.
If you’re more concerned about style though, then the watches are available with a wide range of straps, a selection of LED colours and enough designs to keep you mentally stimulated. Just don’t wear one to the pub.
The UK selection is available here now, with prices ranging from £60 (€85/$120) to £100 (€125/$200).
COMMENTS
www.tokyoflash.com
Go see and buy the original and best @ Tokyoflash.com ... okay so you pay some import tax and a ridiculous £13.50 for Parcelforce to handle the customs clearance but you get geeky gadgety watches which are superbly made.
I got the binary watch a couple of years ago and its fun but I recently bought the Tokyoflash Shinshoku which to my mind looks like a Blakes7 teleport wristband and is surprisingly easy to read.
@Voice of reason
Turning up to an airport with one? It's funny you should mention that...
Mine nearly got me shot. I use a rucksack to carry things, and on holiday it's always jammed full of electronics - music player, speakers, etc. (This was after 11/9, before the July 7th incident. It always gets stopped and searched at X-ray machines. I'm used to it. What I wasn't used to was my new binary watch, which I suddenly discovered is somehow sensitive to metal detectors. As my bag full of kit was being searched, along with my Nondescript Inc. power transformer (a large, white, plastic cylinder with a wire sticking out of it), I walked through the metal detector, and my bloody watch - a metal-enclosed circuit board strapped to my wrist - LIT UP!
The very large man with the very large SMG stood on the other side of the checkpoint looked at my bag, looked at my wrist, decided that one was a trigger for the other, and shoved a gun in my face.
Shit.
Good times!
Which reminds me...
...of a tee-shirt I once saw, which bore the legend
"There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary; and those who don't"
Geek toys
Not wanting to upset the good folks at "Cash n Carrion"
http://www.cashandcarrion.co.uk/
but my favorite place for such kit is ThinkGeek.com
Particularly stuff like their clock that shows the time on LEDs in binary coded decimal:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/59e0/
Watches for the I-Luv-Vista crowd
http://www.findwatches.co.uk/kids-watches-time-teacher-c-65_66.html
