Apparel and accessory maker Fossil Inc. is pairing up with Microsoft and Palm Inc. to create a wristwatch personal digital assistant that's Pocket-PC and Palm-OS compatible. The Wrist PDA is expected to weigh 75 grams, have 190 kilobytes of memory, and store thousands of contacts, appointments, and memos, and up to 20 business cards. Like non-apparel PDAs, the Fossil model would transfer data wirelessly via an infrared beam when it debuts in January.

While there's little doubt that it will be flashed on a fashion runway somewhere, wider sales may be a way's off. Gartner research indicates that handheld computer sales dropped during the quarter ended Sept. 30, partly because consumers are holding off buying new Hewlett-Packard Jornadas and Compaq iPaqs in anticipation of Pocket PC 2002, which will power both PDAs.

The $145 Wrist PDA is only the beginning for Fossil, which is launching a line of techno accessories under the brand name Think Tank. According to a Fossil spokeswoman, the new products, including a lower-end version of the Wrist PDA, will be available by late next year in electronics superstores.