This may go down as the year of the smart watch, and Toshiba is throwing its hat in the ring with its Computer Graphic Watch prototype at CES 2103. What makes this watch different than the Pebble, I'm Watch and the rash of other newfangled timepieces flooding the market is the way it uses your vitals as a security measure.
Thanks to a built-in ECG feature, Toshiba's smart watch can monitor your pulse and actually identify you based on that. So if someone else tries to use your watch, they won't be able to access any of the other functions. Those include being able to glance at incoming calls, calendar entries, news, weather and more.
Based on our very brief demo, the prototype unit seemed sluggish when responding to taps. The OLED display offers wide viewing angles, but it wasn't very colorful. Then there's the bulk. This smart watch is definitely on the chunky side, but we like that it uses an inductive charger to get juice.
To help personalize the experience, Toshiba lets you switch among various watch faces. This is definitely a classy-looking smart watch. Overall, the oddly-named Computer Graphic Watch is kind of weird, but if Toshiba refines the design and beefs up the performance, this device could have some potential.
