Bland and lacking in personality… but that’s just will.I.am…
I don’t give a crap how stigmatized headsets are. They make my life easier. I don’t run around shouting into it like some cheap-suit blow-dry with a Nokia in '97 or anything (I mostly use it in the car). And also, I’m a grown-ass man. I don’t care if some sniffing busybody wants to be “offended”- screw 'em, it’s my life.
Wasn’t he also linked to some shady dealings in Haiti following the earthquake disaster there? Doesn’t mean he can’t put together the new killer app or get some butts shaking, I guess.
Edit- It was Wyclef Jean. He had a charity called Yele Haiti that got hit with a few lawsuits because they refused to pay their bills and left all kinds of things delinquent. There’s also some question as to who exactly benefited from the charity- at one point, the figure was 5mil spent on actual relief out of something like 16 donated (not sure what those figures ended up at, however).
I have an 8.5" Phablet… I use it for phone calls… in public… I know no shame!
I don’t know what the percentage is of donations that go on admin in charities, but I’m guessing it tends to be quite high and will include things like a decent salary for the boss and some nice offices.
Probably. I only mention it because it was a specific sticking-point at the time all his shady-Haiti business was happening, so I figured the imbalance had been deemed unreasonable. By top men or something.
What’s there doesn’t look very good:
<a href=http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=13086>Charity Navigator on Yele Haiti, and a NYT link…
I can’t say that I’m too surprised that this was one of the earlier victims in the harrowing of the smartwatches.
A fad category with a poorly defined use case is the perfect spawning ground for a proliferation of products too deformed to live.
Your reviewer here… I know a lot of reviews of this gadget have started from the premise of “what does will.i.am know about gadgets,” but having talked to the guy I couldn’t buy into that. His interest in science and technology is legit, and the PULS shows some thoughtful touches in the UI. It’s just that the underlying concept of making a self-contained phone in watch form–at the cost of losing a Web browser–strikes me as a bit of a bus without wheels.
Happy to answer any other questions you have, at least until they make me return the loaner unit.
I do not like it, will.i.am.
Can you ask him to stop designing cars?
that design looks pretty illegal, given no turn signals and no side reflectors… but that’s the least of its problems.
Anything that makes Pontiac’s 1990s-era “let’s glue random plastic cladding on the car” school of design look restrained can only be described as unfortunate.
IIRC, it used to be a Delorean as well. He’s ‘designed’ a couple more, equally alarming machines too.
Ye gods, it’s like a Camaro had an orgy with an Alpha, a Ferrari and an Apple TV.
You can pair the PULS with a Bluetooth headset, if you don’t mind the bonus social stigma.
I’m trying to figure out what hypothetical section of the market manages to simultaneously feel smug disdain for Bluetooth headsets and warm affection for smartwatches. That’s some impressive cognitive dissonance.
Because normal people worry about such things, right?
Depends where you are I guess - Isn’t it possible to register basically anything for road use in the UK?
