Watches: The changing face of life-savers

This week, I'm impelled to share ads / thoughts prompted by the still horribly fascinating story of the 1912 Titanic sinking.?

As reported by the BBC:?"A gold pocket watch [pictured] given to the British steamship captain who rescued more than 700 passengers from the Titanic has sold at auction for a record-breaking ï¿¡1.56m ($1.97m)."

Presented to?Sir Arthur Rostron by three women widowed by the tragedy, the watch was created by Tiffany & Co.

We might not associate that iconic New York name so much with watches, but in fact Tiffany?began making timepieces more than 150 years ago.

Time is of the essence

Receiving the SOS after the Titanic struck an iceberg, Captain Rostron changed the course of his ship, the Carpathia, and reached the disaster area in just two hours.

More than 100 years separate the gift of that watch and this year's Tiffany Holiday ad, featuring actress Anya Taylor-Joy (pictured) as the face of the 2024 gift season.

The Titanic never reached New York, and hundreds?of its passengers did not survive to see the city skyline that holds its own?fascination - in this festive Tiffany campaign, a magical one of course.

Not just a pretty face

Coincidentally, in the same week I posted this ad showing?design aspects of the Pixel Watch 3, which is not just a pretty face - it's also the first watch able to detect loss of pulse then call for help.

Its creator Google says:

"The Pixel Watch 3 can prompt a call to life-saving emergency services when loss of pulse is detected during events like cardiac or respiratory arrest"

Whatever your reaction to that level of intimacy / data-sharing, these items provide a compelling illustration of how tech and human responses thread together within the tapestry we call Time.

ends

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