If you're like me, you probably never thought of using the flip-dot technology that you see on roadside signs for a wristwatch. A company called Sequel AG did, though, and has miniaturized it and licensed the technology to Guess for a line of women's watches appearing this fall to be called G-Motion. If you hit the link, you'll see a Flash video of the watch in action; in this case the design is Swarovski crystals (red/white) which makes for a standout look.

In effect, the face of the watch becomes a bitmapped display -- either on or off -- and we're excited about the possibilities of what a watch designer could do with that. the G-Motion line appears to use it for eight-segment displays of time/date/seconds, but you could also draw graphics, text, or pretty much anything else.

Details are TBD, but we are slated to get some of the first units for review, so keep an eye on WR for that.

It'll be interesting to see how these are received by the fashionable -- it's a quartz watch, with a digital display, but the pixels are crystals and the maker is Guess. That should be interesting.

By Paul Hubbard

We have an unusual review today: the Casio Pathfinder PAW500-1V. It's a Pathfinder for women, but surprisingly it's a great watch for a man, too. We've done lots of Pathfinder reviews here on Watch Report, so we jumped at the chance to review this one.

The spec list includes:

• 5-band atomic timekeeping (US, UK, Japan (2) & Germany), auto-receive up to six times per day.
• Tough solar power, meaning shock-resistant with five month power reserve.
• Low temperature rated to -10 to 60C, or 14 to 140F.
• Altimeter/barometer.
• Thermometer (as with all temperature sensors, it's only accurate if you remove the watch from your wrist).
• 100m (330') water resistant.
• Mineral crystal.
• Stopwatch, five alarms, 24h countdown timer and second time zone (world time) from 29 time zones. Note that this includes half-hour offset cities like Kabul, Yangon, and Tehran. (See the manual for the list.)
• Automatic backlight which lights up when you rotate your wrist in the dark. A really neat feature for when your hands are full!
• 12/24 hour display, hourly chime.
• Accurate to within 20 seconds per month in the absence of radio signal.

There aren't a lot of women's outdoor watches on the market. Geeky multifunction tools like the Casio Pathfinder and the Suunto X9i are large even for men, and tend to be functionally styled. The size of the watch case required to accommodate the type of technology found in modern hiking watches, combined with the fact that marketing departments tend to link technology more with men, have kept these types of adventure watches off the wrists of women.

The problem is that plenty of women are obviously into hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, skiing, etc. and have just as much of a need for helpful instruments as men.The answer, therefore, is not to ignore women, but to design something both functional and feminine. The answer is something like the new Suunto Lumi.

The Suunto Lumi is the only ladies' ABC (Altimeter/Barometer/Compass) watch that we're aware of. While not as small and dainty as a formal ladies' watch, it still manages to look stylish while packing in a very impressive set of features:

View the Yes Tati photo gallery.

I'm a big fan of Yes watches. I reviewed the Yes Zulu two years ago, and I have the black Kundalini which never fails to draw attention. So when I heard some time ago that Yes was working on an all-digital watch, the project piqued my interest. The Zulu and the Kundalini are stunning watches, but somewhat overpower my narrow wrist, so I hoped a digital Yes watch would give me the unique and innovative perspective on time that is the signature of Yes watches, but in a more appropriately sized package.

The Yes Tati is precisely that. By replacing the analog 24-hour hand that distinguishes the rest of the lineup with an LCD, Yes was able to remove an entire quartz movement and extra battery. The result is a much smaller watch which is just as unique as the other pieces, and with all the same functionality.

Although the Tati is designed for narrower wrists, I wouldn't go so far as to classify it as a ladies watch. While it certainly looks at home on a woman's wrist, the wide leather cuff (easily removable), especially on the black version, makes it appropriate for men, as well -- especially those of us who were cursed with a combination of watch lust and skinny wrists. The soft leather strap makes the Tati both light weight, and very comfortable against the skin.

Yes watches have some of the most interesting and expressive names of any watch brand, and the Tati is no exception. I expected Tati to refer to a distant mountain range, or perhaps the name of an ancient sun goddess, but it turns out that the origins of the name are even more interesting. Tati is short for Tatiana, Yes Watches CEO Bjørn Kartomten's daughter, and judging from my conversations with Bjørn, the inspiration for much of what he does.

If you are new to Yes watches, it's important to realize that they are not all about aesthetics. In fact, Yes watches were specifically born out of a desire to present a more complete picture of time by bringing together manmade horological concepts like hours, minutes, and seconds with nature's concepts of time like sunrise, sunset, and moon phases. It turns out that integrating these two words means cramming an incredible number of features into a relatively small case.

I already told you the story of my father's Rolex. It's a 1965 Rolex Oyster Perpetual that he received from his father as a high school graduation present. Apparently a new Rolex cost all of $125 back then, which is about $750 today. Anyway, now it's time to tell the story of my mom's Rolex.

First of all, lest you think I come from a wealthy family where all the children wear little Rolexes and are raised by European nannies, I'll start off by saying that my mom's Rolex was actually free. I'll further qualify that statement by saying that it was also not stolen.

We moved a lot as I was growing up. Probably every two years, on average. My parents were in banking, real estate, and building, and my dad eventually got his real estate license for the sake convenience, and to avoid having to pay agents commission. A friend of the family needed to buy a couple of office condos for a new business he was starting, so as a favor, he did so through my dad. Turns out the builder was giving away a Rolex to any agent who could sell two units within a certain amount of time. My dad came home ecstatic one day with the news that he was getting a second Rolex, though he was swiftly corrected by my mom. The result was a very nice ladies' two-tone Rolex Oyster Datejust.

There isn't a whole lot of information available on the new TechnoMarine ceramic ladies' watches, but here's what I know so far:

Although TechnoMarine is not the first to create a ceramic watch, they are the first to add color. Apparently, the process of making a ceramic watch is such that it's very tricky to add color, and therefore all previous ceramic watches have been white, black or gray. TechnoMarine has seemingly mastered the process, however, as they now offer some very cool looking new ladies' watches in blue, baby blue, pink, brown, black, white, and orange.

This isn't ceramic like so many saucers we've all dropped and broken over the years. These watches are constructed out of industrial strength ceramic formulated from a combination of two different types of metal powers, extremely high temperatures, and very high pressure. The result is a substance that is apparently about as hard as substances get (not counting diamonds), and is used to protect spacecraft from the massively high temperatures they experience while reentering the earth's atmosphere. If it's good enough for the Space Shuttle, it's probably good enough for a chronograph.