Interesting article about the way Microsoft's SPOT (smart peronsal object technology) watch will work.
Microsoft … settled on a data rate of 12 kilobits per second. In a given day… more than 125 megabytes can be transferred in the radio broadcasts. Microsoft … secretly cut deals with FM radio stations around the country to lease the sub-carrier spectrum… enough coverage to hit about 80 percent of the country, and all major metropolitan areas. Microsoft found a way to personalize the watches: giving each a unique identification number. Then, as the watch is receiving the DirectBand signals, it looks only for data associated with the ID number. Hence, your watch only stores data on the sports teams you like and discards the rest. And because the watch knows which radio station it is receiving the information from, it can use that knowledge to reset itself. For instance, if you travel to Dallas, the watch will pick up signals from the Dallas radio station and reset itself for the appropriate time zone.
