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Trainspotting: Hands On With The Mondaine Evolution Automatic Watch
This weekend’s watch review is focused on the Mondaine Evolution Automatic, a mechanical model that hovers right about the $500 price point — a rare departure into the bargain section for this series. The model I tested is unique for a few reasons although, in the end, this watch is less about the feature set and more about the iconic design.
First, Mondaine is styled on the famous Swiss railway clocks found in stations throughout the country. The bold black hands and clever red seconds hand with the bright red pip at the end are instantly recognizable and, more important, instantly readable. There is no lume on this watch because the assumption is that the contrast between the dark hands and the white face will be sufficient for the weary evening sojourner.
It has a nice 40mm case and exhibition back so you can see the movement and rotor. It comes on a basic leather strap and is ostensibly Swiss-made (a term that can end up being nebulous) but is, at the very least, assembled in Switzerland.
It runs a Sellita SW 220-1 automatic movement, a capable replacement for the traditional ETA movements used in this sort of piece. It has a hacking function – the second hand stops while setting for time synchronization – and it has a day/date register in English and German.
I’ve been a fan of Mondaine for a while and like my other favorite, Xetum, it is one of the few three-handed, non complicated watches that I actually enjoy. The design is iconic and hardly polarizing and the legibility and style are classic without being stuffy. This is a designer’s watch and expresses a certain symmetry and careful consideration for legibility in various harsh conditions. Surprisingly you can, at a glance, tell the exact time thanks to the large hands and bold chapter ring. This is unique in a wristwatch because most watches bury the minutes pips by making them too thin or too light.
Is this a special watch? Yes and no. Given its price and simple movement it’s now more a fashion timepiece than anything else. However, given the design pedigree and readability, I would argue that it deserves a bit more attention than it has thus far gotten. I’ve seen it pop up at about $500-$550 online. This is far less than similarly outfitted “nice” watches. It’s even cheaper than the excellent Le Locle from Tissot, another contender for the inexpensive, but high-quality, timepiece crown.
Again, if you like this particular design then this is a capable, solid, and attractive timepiece. The leather band and the 100-foot water resistance mean that this thing isn’t for beach play. But if you’re going to be wearing it to business meetings or while handling the Wacom tablet, you could do worse.
BitWall Allows Publishers To Make Money Through Bitcoin Micropayments
Here’s another way that digital currency Bitcoin could have a big impact, according to startup BitWall: it could give online publishers a real alternative to putting up paywalls or relying solely on ads for revenue.
The argument for micropayments is probably familiar to most of you: You may not want to pay a big subscription fee but might be willing to shell out a little bit of money to read an article that interests you. Yet the idea has never really taken off with online publishers.
How is Bitcoin supposed to change that? BitWall argues that with traditional payment systems, there’s a significant transaction fee, so small payments don’t make sense. With Bitcoin, where the fees are lower, the startup says publishers “can finally unlock the untapped world of micropayments.”
At the same time, co-founder and CEO Nic Meliones said the team is open to adding other payment options in the future. He also noted that readers who just want to pay in U.S. dollars can do so, since BitWall is integrated with digital wallet system Coinbase, which allows easy conversion between USD and Bitcoin.
Meliones gave me a quick demo of how the system works. After a site has integrated with BitWall, users who try to read an article will be presented with a new kind of paywall, a “bitwall,” which offers a menu of options. The obvious one is making a small payment (as little as 1 cent), via Bitcoin, to access that specific piece of content. But readers can also pay a daily subscription fee, prepay for a larger sum of credits, or even get access by just tweeting or watching an ad (since publishers are usually paid per impression, “an ad is essentially a micropayment as well,” Meliones said).
The point is the publisher gets something in exchange for the content. The exact mix of payment options (as well as which content is bitwalled) is up to the individual site. You can see this in action for yourself with the first BitWall integration, which went live earlier this week at Bitcoin news and data site ZeroBlock. If you click on the headlines in the ZeroBlock News section, you’ll be asked to pay for the article, watch an ad or tweet.
BitWall was part of Boost VC, an incubator for Bitcoin startups, which had its first demo day on Thursday.
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