Is Slowing Demand For Watches In Asia Finally Causing Job Cuts At Swiss Manufactures?
While the?luxury watch fair Watches & Wonders is running at full throttle in Hong Kong, one needs to take a step back to understand how markets in China and other places around the world are affecting the watch market and causing it to adapt and evolve. Even in Hong Kong, strong?pro-democracy protests have been under way, in what some refer to as "the worst unrest since the territory's 1997 handover from Britain," according to Reuters. At the same time, news released from TAG?Heuer (the largest watch company in the LVMH luxury conglomerate) announced earlier this week it is cutting jobs in its watch manufacturing facilities. We believe that this news is strongly linked to the?slowing demand from?the "Asian watch capital," and China overall.According to official Swiss statistics, Hong Kong alone accounted for?nearly 20% of all Swiss watch exports in value, more than the USA and Germany combined �C and with that in mind, it is easy to see why this has been urging TAG Heuer to undertak

The First Rolex Submariner Watch
Rolex produced the very first Submariner in 1953 with this model ref. 6204 watch. The Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner would go on to not only become one of the most iconic timepieces in the world, but also one of the most heavily emulated, desired, and studied. The Rolex Submariner was the first diver's watch from Rolex and followed a legacy that started in 1926 when Rolex released its first water-resistant watch, the Oyster.Rolex really began its life in making dive watches with Panerai. True enough, early Panerai watches contain Rolex movements, and for a while in the 1930s, the Swiss and Italian companies worked together on military dive watches based on Panerai asking Rolex to help it produce timepieces for the Italian Navy. Rolex learned from this experience but it was not until the 1950s that Rolex would release its own dive watch. The original Rolex Submariner began a long era of experimentation and improvement. The original ref. 6204 was produced for a year or less, and even

Casio Bluetooth Watch For Smart Phones
News about this Casio watch concept has been everywhere. People seem to be more excited about what it is able to do than Casio is. This is partially evidenced by its circa 1987 G-Shock design. This however is a mere prototype - meant to show off the concept. That concept being the ability for a watch to sync via Bluetooth with a phone - and not have pathetically poor battery life in the process. Sure this Casio Bluetooth watch isn't the first timepiece that allows you to connect your phone to your watch, but all of those previous watches needed to be charged really frequently. This watch would need a battery change each two years like a normal (non solar powered) Casio quartz watch.The secret? Something called BLE, which stands for Bluetooth Low Energy. This new profile requires much less energy to move information from two Bluetooth connected devices. Though I did also hear that this is a feature of Bluetooth profile 4.0 - something that is currently not available on any phones. So wh

Is buying a new Speedmaster Professional lame?
I find myself with some spending money to burn, but not enough for a new Rolex. Since I got my gen2 Exp1 in October that seems reasonable.I've finally realized that I'm just not into vintage, I'd rather start fresh and make my own way with a watch (nothing against vintage of course). Plus I'm still totally confused by the Speedmaster lineage, and I really care about nice bracelets, have heard Omega makes good ones, and also like that the new Speedmaster has screws instead of pins.So is it lame buying a new Speedmaster? For some reason it feels like it is, maybe because vintage is so in right now. I'm seriously considering a Seiko Marinemaster as well, which I think I love (apart from the bracelet), and dive watches sing to me loudly, but I dunno. I'm also knocking around buying a Seiko Sumo and saving up some more for when my wife goes to the UK in April in the hopes she could find me a no date SubC, hard as that is these days.Also does anyone pay retail for a new Speedmaster Professio

PAM 389 or 1389
Should I bite on the 389 or wait for the 1389? Can't decide because the 389 is a bit too thick