Photo: Wenn
Will.i.am has unveiled the Puls, his own wearable smartwatch, at an event in San Francisco.
The smartwatch (which the Black Eyed Pea would prefer to refer to as a 'cuff') is controlled via a Siri-like feature called Aneeda (as in "I need a"). The Puls (pronounced 'pulse') supports Instagram, Facebok, Twitter, Salesforce and can access photos, emails, calls and music.
It has 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, works on wi-fi and features a pedometer. There is even a luxury version that comes in gold with diamonds - which one suspect only Will.i.am and the occasional Premier League WAG may wear. As TheNextWeb reports Will.i.am also boasted it contained "four kilowatts of DAF (Dope as Fuckness)".
The watch is released under the i.am+ brand and took 35 engineers two years to build. Various features include the fact you can share contacts with other users by knocking cuffs and there is an 'emotion detector' using an app called Vibe. To complete this somewhat naff picture the below from LA Models appears to be part of the new advertising campaign:
Fashion + Technology. You are a sexy one, #PULS! #nexterday #OOTD http://t.co/1guvwRj7oP @iamwill #lamodels pic.twitter.com/nL4egA4yAu
— LA Models (@LAModelsAgency) October 16, 2014
Puls also allows you to identify a contact using just your voice, based on how you met that particular person. For example: you can tell Puls "Call that girl at the bar who stopped dancing when 'It's My Birthday' came on'.
Watch the Puls in action (with a really tiny keyboard) in this video below
In the UK, O2 is the exclusive network partner, although no price or release date has been announced. Will.i.am also teased information about a partnership with News Corp as a way of delivering news.
The reaction so far in the technology community might so far be described as 'politely intrigued' but on Twitter Will.i.am appears to have had some interest, including an endorsement from no less than MC Hammer.
Bizarrely Will.i.am actually first unveiled the watch first not at a technology conference but on Alan Carr's cutting edge Chatty Man (skip to 9.15 to see him discussing it).
In his presentation on the Puls, the producer also mentioned some of his future ideas for products include 'Powear' jackets that charge your pulse, shoes that act as pedometers and weight you and a backpack with speakers to make people on a nightbus hate you more easily.
Although the producer has been hugely successfully musical, his experiments with technology have been mixed. As the Kernal reported in depth, for every win (he invested in Beats) there has been a failure (his iphone accessory foto.shotto sunk without trace.)
Below: The very worst Will.i.am crimes against music
