After that dorkwad Bluetooth watch from last week, we felt the need to cleanse ourselves with a more stylin' timepiece, so we're glad that reader Robert pointed us to the 2006 Abacus Smart Watch, designed by Fossil. The Abacus tunes into the MSN Direct network via FM, bringing weather, news and sports alerts, and instant messages (from MSN Messenger) right to your wrist. And yes, it also tells time; you can pick from one of six preset watch faces or load up others from the MSN Direct Watch Face channel. Nice that it comes in a selection of metal and leather bands, too, at least according to this selection of Abacuses (Abaci?) at Amazon (it's supposed to debut this month, so hopefully those "currently not available" messages will be updated soon). It all sounds cool as long as you're willing to shell out $40 a year for MSN Direct service, although the first year is included in the price, whatever that ends up being. A previous MSN watch from Fossil was priced at about $100, so we're guessing a little more than that. The Abacus is part of Microsoft's SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology) initiative, which aims to improve everyday objects through software. Can't wait for the MSN Toaster… — Peter Pachal

Update: Another one of our readers pointed us to SpotStop's review of the Abacus 2006, which mentions the price of the Spotty accessory is $179. Thanks, Brian!