https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/tribute-to-the-seiko-messagewa...
Back before cell phones were ubiquitous that was pretty novel. I remember being struck by how cool it was to step off the plane in Taipei and see it update to local time while I watched. Getting pages about server downtime using the email gateway was also a nice way not to lug a pager around.
The system didn't outlive Y2K, however, and since it was clear where the market was going they simply shut it down rather than fix the Y2K bugs.
It’s remarkable how a concept can stick around for decades waiting on an implementation that’s good enough to be viable.
Instead of trying to think of new things it’s perhaps better to go read tech magazines of prior decades finding failed ideas and trying to breathe new life into them.
https://www.google.com/search?q=300Z+dash+digital&num=100&cl...
ＡＥＳＴＨＥＴＩＣＳ.
MIT Wearable Computing, circa 1996:
30 year later: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_S1
2014: Apple Watch. - ARM CPU 500Mhz - 8G Flash (?) - 512MB RAM.
- X 50-250 - X 1000 - X 256000
2044: ??? Watch - CPU 25-125GHz (?) - 8TB Flash - 128TB RAM.