Pop star turned tech entrepreneur will.i.am finally unveiled his first product at an event in San Francisco this week: a smartwatch.
The Black Eyed Peas front man, whose real name is William Adams, launched
the ‘Puls’ cuff - he insists it is not a watch - at the Dreamforce technology event on Wednesday.
Designed by a team of engineers at his i.am+ company, it will have 1GB of memory, 16 GB of storage, 3G and wifi capability, Bluetooth, a GPS map system and a pedometer, all powered by an Android-based platform and a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Calls and texts can be made on the device using 3G radio, while the news platform will be provided by Rupert Murdoch's News International.
“You can make phone calls on this bad boy, do emails, do texts, do fitness, do maths,” he said.
The smartwatch’s mobile partner in the UK will be 02, and in the US it is AT&T. However, no pricing or release date was available for the wristband, which has been over two years in the making.
The singer turned tech mobile said it was important the device would be a fashion statement as well as a technology product, and that he envisioned it being part of a line of ‘wearables’. Other prototype products he previewed at the event included a jacket capable of charging the smartwatch by touching it; shoes that can weigh the wearer and double up as a pedometer, and a backpack with surround sound and built in power supply.
Strictly speaking, the smartwatch isn't his first venture into technology: he is a co-founder of Beats and its third equity partner, along with Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine. Beats sold to Apple for $3 billion earlier this year. In 2012, will.i.am launched the foto.sosho, a $415 case for the iPhone which was markedly less successful.
Amongst the other keynote speakers at the four day conference, which is an annual event run by Salesforce, was Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, the former US secretary of State spoke about the importance of an open internet, referring to the "ongoing struggle with more oppressive regimes worldwide who want more control over the internet."
She was also critical of the media, which she said has made it difficult to be a leader.
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, who gave an address on Wednesday, warned about the rate at which technology start ups are burning through cash. "The Amazon lesson is that if you ever generate a penny of profit, you've made a mistake. People need to know it's not actually that easy," he said.
Andreessen, who has invested in Airbnb and Pinterest as well as longer-established companies like Twitter and LinkedIn, stopped short of describing the current environment in Silicon Valley as a bubble, but said he was warning the ceos of companies he has invested in to curb their extravagance. "Maybe don't have Bruno Mars at your party," he said in a joking reference to the no-expense-spared Dreamforce event, which featured the singer as its headline act.
“Maybe we can have regular water instead of coconut water, and maybe the masseuse could just come in on Wednesdays and Fridays.”
