Picture it: you're sitting across the table at a nice restaurant, gazing into your lover's eyes, maybe holding his/her hand. Then suddenly one of your phones go off. Talk about a mood killer.
But fear not—there's a new wearable that marries two of a girl's "favourite things": her bling and her smartphone. Ringly is a ring with a difference. Set with semi-precious stones, it may look like any other beautiful ring, yet it has go-go gadget powers.
This Woman Found Her Wedding Ring After 16 Years and You'll Never Guess Where
Connected through your phone, Ringly will vibrate to alert you to messages or calls, and can be customized to only let through certain calls. So you are free (sort of) to kick back and enjoy your meal without constantly peeking at your phone, to the increasing irritation of your date.
Having received $5.1 million in funding, Ringly will be available beginning in March at Bloomingdales online.
"It started when I noticed everyone always had their phones out at dinner," said Ringly CEO, Christina Mercando. "We are always so worried about missing something. I wondered if there was a way to solve this, and quickly thought of jewelry. I wear a lot of jewelry that doesn't do anything, so I thought maybe there was a way to put some technology in there to make it smarter."
Too Much Technology: Would You Do What This Family Did?
Though I'm no jewelry lover, I can see the appeal in an aesthetically pleasing but totally functional bit of tech. It's not enough for your bling to just sit there and look pretty anymore; it has to work for you.
Ringly is clearly marketed at a certain demographic, and if Mercando has her way wearables will be The Future. "I foresee different companies offering products for a variety of lifestyles. You might wear a heart rate monitor shirt at the gym, or Ringly at a cocktail party. If we look at the space more like clothing, there is a lot of room for many different wearables to grow."
You tell me: Would you wear a Ringly?
Image Source: Facebook
Have you seen the latest viral wedding proposal, in which regular Joe - Dean Smith - holds up "Will you marry me" signs every day for an entire year? Yes, that's 365 days of question-popping. 365 days of the same guy grinning cheesy grins, lip-syncing cheesy songs, and otherwise doing mundane things like cooking and flossing his teeth for a whole 15—almost 16—minutes.
(Frankly I'm surprised he's not holding up the placard while sitting on the can. See, Jennifer, this is what you can look forward to in married life!)
Enough already.
Maybe I'm just bitter because my own proposal took place over a harried, teary phone call and contained all the romance of a root canal. Or not... Because what followed has been a lengthy, solid, and deeply loving partnership.
Such public displays lead me to wonder who they are really for. The YouTube element is so show-offy, so look-what-I-did, that it seems beside the point of what is arguably the most intimate, personal question you can ask another person: Will you share your life with me?
A wedding proposal is not a PowerPoint presentation you are delivering to the world at large.
Commitment, after all, is singular. It has a single intended audience member. Maybe it's time to scale back on the grandiose, and what this writer calls the egoistic, wedding proposal.
Want a Happy Marriage? Cheap Out on the Wedding
Sure, you can be creative. But you don't have to be desperate. You don't have to spend a lot of money, or even hire extras. In hindsight, I'm thankful that I tied the knot in quieter times, when you weren't expected to play a character in your own reality TV show.
Sorry to break it to you, Dean Smith et al. Marriage doesn't require a video production. Marriage—and love for that matter—isn't rockets firing in the sky. It isn't Niagara Falls, but the start of a slow, steady current that, if you're really lucky, will run throughout your life.
Image Source: YouTube
Sure, we all have a few skeletons in our home video closets, typically involving braces, crimped hair, and pimples galore, but at least we can burn or otherwise bury our VHS collection. No such luck for Ryan Gosling, whose cringeworthy dance for a middle school talent show has been unearthed for your viewing pleasure.
In the 1992 footage, a young Gos busts MC Hammer-esque moves to Cathy Dennis's hit "Touch Me (All Night Long)." At one point, you may squirm at the sexy prepubescent chest stroking.
Ryan Gosling. All. To. Yourself.
I wish I could say I knew him when he wasn't famous. I didn't—although Gos did spend his formative years in my hometown and to this day, and to his utmost credit, he never denies his small-town Ontario roots.
All I can say is thank goodness he eventually turned to acting and chose the path that Bieber didn't travel. He knew where he wanted to go even as a little kid, and did what he had to to get there. Own it, dude, own it...
Silver Hammer pants notwithstanding, we still love you, Ryan!
Image Source: WikiCommons
Printer-friendly version