"We want to make computing experience more pervasive and graceful" using wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, said Dan Russell, a senior manager at IBM Almaden Research Center.

IBM demonstrated a host of newly designed wireless device prototypes. They included digital jewelry; a watch with a high resolution display; a Linux watch running a Bluetooth protocol software stack; an MP3 player wirelessly connected to an IBM Microdrive via Bluetooth; and flip phones equipped with a special mirror and magnification optics to provide a full-size display.

Digital jewelry, for example, can alert a user of an incoming e-mail by suddenly turning red, or signal a change in certain stock prices by going bright yellow, Russell said. While such an effort can make computing "beautiful," he said, "it also opens up hard problems. We need to figure out how to configure the jewelry while sorting out security and ownership issues" for such distributed computing devices.

The Linux watch, which features a high-resolution display to allow web browsing, must not necessarily incorporate all the unit's computing power. Using wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, "it can be driven by something else," said Russell. "Display, processor and memory can now be pulled apart. We can put them in places where they fit and where they make sense."

In similar distributed fashion, the MP3 player that incorporates a Bluetooth radio can serve as a portable decoder box, with 1 gigabyte of music stored in a separate device such as IBM's Microdrive, said John Karidis, distinguished engineer of new technology ventures at IBM's Personal Systems Group.

IBM researchers have also developed different variations on the common wristwatch. In one example, a watch with a small poly-silicon LCD was able to display a lot of data clearly. The company intends its Linux watch with Bluetooth to serve as a development platform. The new watch has proven that "we were able to scale Linux that can run on mainframes down to small appliances," said Karidis. Since it runs on a standard platform such as Linux, developers easily test out applications for such a watch, he said. IBM's Linux watch features and ARM7-based CPU, 8 Mbytes of flash memory, a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery, touch sensitive display, plus a speaker and microphone.

While IBM's prototype high-resolution watch uses a poly-silicon LCD, its flip phone with the projection mode feature uses an organic electroluminescent display, said Karidis. "The power penalty of the polysilicon LCD was too large," he said. The flip phone with a one-inch display comes with a special mirror and magnification optics to project a full-size display for users. "The size of a display no longer becomes a limitation for consumers wanting to do Web browsing on their tiny phone," Karidis said. With a Bluetooth link, one can import to the flip phone information from a PC, and use the watch as a read-only-device.