Credit: Swatch

If you think a cell phone that takes and transmits photos is sooo 2004, help is at hand. Or, rather, just above the hand. Now, all sorts of information -- useful and useless alike -- can be beamed from the Web directly to your wrist. Behold the next next thing: watches powered by MSN Direct. Companies like Fossil, Suunto, Swatch, and Tissot have designed wrist receivers that plug you in (wirelessly, of course) to the virtual zeitgeist.

Some of the designs are cooler than others, but they all have one thing in common: Elegantly inconspicuous they are not. If you're accustomed to vintage calculator watches, however, no special physical training will be required to wear one.

The new gizmos retain a few quaint functions. They keep time, for instance, with highly accurate, self-setting chronographs. They also grab content off the Internet in real time from the MSN Direct Web site (where you've already set your preferences from a regular computer). You can get the weather, the news, and sports quotes when you're not enjoying personal messages from your sweetie. (Alas, you can't send from the watches.) You can also synchronize your Outlook calendar to keep track of appointments.

None of this functionality comes without a fairly hefty price tag. The watches themselves range from $150 for the Swatch Paparazzi to $750 for the Tissot High-T. Beyond that, there's a $10 monthly or $40 annual fee to access MSN Direct. If you opt to use the messaging and Outlook sync features, tack on another $20 per year.

This service may be part of Microsoft's grand plan to take over the world -- what isn't? -- but because the technology is still in its early stage, the best is probably yet to come. We can just hear Bill Gates and his brain trust declaiming, "Today the wrist, tomorrow . . . the rest!"