Citizen Eco Drive

INDIA HAS NUMEROUS News Channels but very few of them have invested heavily into recruiting and training journalists. Generally one journalist is stationed in the capital of a state. Some of India’s states are bigger than many countries of the world, so the journalist stationed in the state capital can just cover the press briefings and any major incident that occurs around the state capital. But the citizen media is changing all this.
Recently, news from far-flung areas is also being shown as it happens. This has had a major impact on the government and action has started in the right earnest on their account. Those channels that have broken most stories, have garnered massive viewership and suddenly advertisers are rushing to them and distribution networks are competing with each other to bring them on their platform. This has all happened due to the phenomenon called ‘Citizen Journalism’, that has swept India lately. The Right to Information and Citizen Journalism have given power to the people in the true sense. Participatory journalism is today’s buzz, where citizen reporters contribute in the mainstream media to bring those news items, which are important from the common man’s perspective.
Bhagalpur is a small town in the state of Bihar. A Citizen Journalist captured, in his camera, how a man accused of snatching a chain was brutally beaten first by the mob and then by the police, who even tied him to his motorcycle and dragged him for a distance. The visuals caught the attention of the nation and media pressure coupled with widespread condemnation of the open abuse of human rights forced Bihar government to act against the policemen involved.
Another story by a Citizen Journalist was the headline of the entire news network. The story about the stripping of over 1000 men in the village of Boraj, near Ajmer, shook the conscience of the whole nation. The local elected body at the grassroot level, the village Panchayat, had asked the men to strip to establish whether any of them was involved in the rape of a 35-year-old woman from the village.
Another story, by a Punjab based Citizen Journalist, exposed theft from trains that ferried oil. Many children, men and women filling their buckets with oil were shown and as a result many guilty officials lost their jobs.
The national and international media picked up the story of how the forest department people looted and burnt down a tribal settlement for encroaching on forestland. Based in the remote corner of the country, Betul, this citizen reporter has broken many stories till now.
When a woman stripped and walked on the street to draw attention to the harassment she faced from her in-laws, a Citizen Journalist quickly broke the story to mainstream media. Similar was the case of Gudia and Imrana - Gudia, the wife of a prisoner of war who married another man after her husband didn’t return from the war front; Imrana, a Muslim woman, who accused her own father-in-law of rape.
The phenomenon of grassroot journalism is catching up fast in the country. Since access to television is more widespread than that of the internet the stories break first on television. However, the day is not far when with the growing reach of the internet and computers, this would change.
Whatever the channel, television or internet, the important thing is that for a democracy to survive, thrive and grow it is important that its people participate actively in its growth and participatory journalism is doing just that in India.
Source: http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=126466

You can often find the word attached to every new Citizen Watch that comes on the market but by now it is just expected that consumers know the meaning of this buzzword. It's quite simple really, it is the title of Citizen's latest technology. This article explains Eco-Drive as simply as we can.

These watches are a new high-tech range of solar powered timepieces.

Obviously, one of the most important advantages of this technology is that these watches should never need a replacement battery (unless there is a fault), allowing you get on with your everyday tasks without your watch starting to loose time.

"Unstoppable, just like the people who wear it" - This is Citizen's tag line for the technology. Pretty snazzy hey?

These watches are of usual size and do not have any strange additions. Citizen have simply put a solar charging panel behind the dial, so any natural or artificial light puts a charge into a lithium-ion battery. This battery then keeps the watch running at all times - even when there is no source of light.

In the unlikely even that the watch becomes low on charge, the watch will compensate by keeping time in 2 second increments instead of 1 second increments. Normal function can be resumed by putting the watch in a source of light for a slightly extended period of time. In our tests, it took several hours for one of these watches to reach the 2 second increments. The watch would have to be unworn and kept in a very dark place for it to lose charge.

In other news Citizen now offer a full 5 year guarantee on all their watches, more reason than ever to snap one up quickly.

Both these companies make great products, but they do so utilizing completely different technologies. So which is best, and further more which is the better choice when considering purchasing a dive watch.

On the one hand, Seiko kinetic dive watches utilize motion, or kinetic energy derived from movement, while the Citizen Eco-Drive watch incorporates solar panels to capture energy from various light sources. On the surface, the most observable difference is that the latter relies on fewer moving parts.

Of course, fewer parts is always better in terms of long-term reliability, however in the case of a watch it's likely more of a moot point since analog watches are already composed of more parts than one could count, so what real difference will a few more make.

First, some history on how both these power systems function will be useful before drilling down to deciding which is best. Obviously, this discussion has nothing to do with watches requiring daily winding either. Leave that to the over-priced Rolex still lost in the last century.

Seiko pioneered the self-winding watch back in 1980. They came up with a way to translate the motion of the wearers arm movements into the mechanical energy necessary to wind the watches mainspring. The fancy word kinetic simply means motion-generated mechanical energy.

They do this by having arm motion swing an odd-shaped rotor, weighted heavily on one side, around a winding mechanism that, with the use of special reversed gearing, will only move in one direction. The result is a winding of the mainspring over time.

This in itself will keep the watch wound as long as it's worn and thus receiving kinetic energy input. But if left off the arm for a day or two, it will stop. This is especially important since the focus here is on dive watches, which might not be worn as a regular everyday watch.

To resolve this problem, Seiko added a battery as a place to store the excess kinetic energy. Assuming the battery is fully charged, the watch can now be left lying still for months or even years and still not require winding.

Instead of kinetic energy, Citizen developed a way to utilize light as a power source. And it doesn't even need to be sunlight - any light source will do fine.

To accomplish this, Citizen places tiny solar cells on the faces of their Eco-Drive watches. These cells are what transform light into electrical energy. This energy is then collected and stored in energy cells, sort of like a battery, that will then supply power for extended periods, even without light.

Again, since the underlying subject is really about dive watches, this is especially useful for someone who only uses the watch for diving, as opposed to wearing it everyday. By storing up energy for later use, these watches can be left idle for extended periods, and still show the correct time upon their next use.

In fact, a lot of the newest models, both solar and kinetic, have something called hibernation mode, where after sensing no movement for an extended period, the hands and dial functions stop moving to save energy. However, the quartz movement will keep on calculating the correct time, so once the watch is moved again, the sensors activate and reset with current data.

Battery technology has come quite far along too, so were now close to the point where this storage cell or battery, could last beyond the lifetime of the wearer. That means the battery would never need replacing, making these watches super friendly to the environment.

So which one is best? Well, if the watch is worn with any amount of regularity, it appears to be a toss up, and either energy source will work fine. You can also see that either type watch can be left idle for long periods of time ranging from months to years, and continue to keep correct time.

I suppose if one left the Citizen Eco-Drive watch in a drawer long enough, it would eventually stop from lack of light, but then again, so would a Seiko kinetic watch from lack of wrist movement.

At the end of the day, it's somewhat unlikely one will purchase any watch just to leave it lying around for years, so the answer has to be that both energy generation techniques will work well, and it becomes a matter of personal preference.

Citizen Watch Company is a watch brand that was established in 1924. The men who established the company chose Citizen as the name so that it would be easily recognizable to people everywhere. Citizen has become a world wide company in the last seventy-five years and is now recognized as a global brand. Every year since the year 1986 Citizen has been recognized as the largest watchmaker in the world. Citizen is also recognized for the innovative technology that they use to make Citizen watches. Citizen has been first for many types of watches. They were the first to create the world’s slimmest LCD. They had the first voice recognition watch. The Citizen dive watches were the first to have an electronic depth sensor. New to Citizen watches is the Eco-Drive collection, which is ecologically friendly. Eco-Drive watches are powered by light rather than a battery.

Citizen Watch Company is accessible a few different ways. You can access their website. Their website has a section that tells about the company. It also allows you to shop for watches. When you shop on the website for watches you can do specific searches. For example, you can search for ladies Citizen watches in $201 to $300 range. You can also do a search for Citizen watches by keyword. The website also includes links for press releases, a store locator, my favorites, corporate gifts and technical support. The store locator link will help you find the nearest Citizen Watch Company store. The My Favorites link lets you keep a list of your favorite watches so that you can easily find them again. The corporate gifts link shows you a watch to give as a gift from your corporation to an employee. The technical support link gives you information regarding setting your Citizen watch, recharging guides, FAQs, and Service information. You can also go into one of their stores. A third way you can access Citizen Watch Company is to call them.

Citizen Watch Company makes watches for men and women. They make every kind of watch you can think of. There are Citizen dress watches. There are Citizen diving watches. You can find Citizen sport watches.

There is a wide range in the price of Citizen watches online. They start at about $135 and go up to $700.

If you are interested in purchasing a Citizen watch you should shop around. Citizen retailers are all over the world. If you prefer to shop on the internet, then you can find discounted Citizen watches if you do an internet search, rather than paying full price through the Citizen website. If you purchase a Citizen watch online make sure you are doing so through a reputable dealer. Also make sure that the payment gateways are safe. You will want to be sure that you check into the price and guarantee to make sure they are not hiding anything from you. It might be helpful to ask around and order from a site that people you know have ordered from and had success with previously.

There are a lot of different companies that make watches and timepieces today but there are few that have been around as long as the Citizen Watch Company. Moreover, there are only a handful of companies that have stuck to their guns when it comes to the quality of the products that they were founded upon. Citizen Watch Company is the exception to the rule when it comes to this area of business and they have yet to fall to the almighty dollar and cut the quality. This is why they are now the largest maker of watches and timepieces in the world with a presence in every major country. The uncompromising quality and style of the Citizen Watch has made this so.

THE EARLY DAYS

The first Citizen Watch was created in 1924 using a new form of technology to make it the smallest and thinnest of the time. It is very hard to recognize this timepiece against the watches that are made today but anyone with a little knowledge can easily identify the craftsmanship of the piece and know that it is a Citizen Watch. This was the springboard for the piece and it went all uphill from there.

The actual Citizen Watch Company was formed six years later in 1930 and was an immediate success. This was due in part to the founders need to bring better and brighter things to the market as soon as possible. Unlike a lot of companies that will hold off on new technology so they do not hurt their current market, the Citizen Watch Company rolled out the many products that it developed from the beginning and made a big splash in the world. This has also made them one of the most hated among the other watch makers in the world but that is nothing to this company as they rolled along.

The Citizen Watch Company now employs more than three thousand people the world over. Based in Japan, they are the first company to make some of the finest innovations in the world and still maintain a market presence in the standard watches that they produced as well. This is something that the other companies were having a lot of trouble with and making a lot of enemies along the way was a daily occurrence for this company.

THE NEW DAY

The Citizen Watch Company was the sole responsible party for the first shock resistant watch to ever be made. This was a big deal for the many hard working people in the world who were tired of having to take their watch in for repair because of shock problems.

Citizen also made its mark on the diving world with the first professional dive watch that features an electronic depth sensor. This improvement on the old design of diving watch has ever endeared the company to the many diving enthusiasts around the world.

They were also responsible for the first Analog Quartz watch to be produced which single handedly changed the way the world told time. Today the Citizen Watch Company has taken the watch making world to a whole new level with Eco Drive System. Tapping into the resource of being environmentally friendly, the Eco Drive System uses a hidden solar cell that is embedded into the works. This cell gathers power from the sun and artificial light sources and turns it into energy to drive the watch. By far this is the most popular watch to be found today and it has more benefits to the environment. No longer do you need to go to the store to purchase a new battery and worry about the old one polluting the ground in a land fill somewhere.

All in all the Citizen Watch Company has been responsible for some of the best things to happen in watches and timepieces for the past many years. Today they are still one of the most popular watch brands in the world and make up a large share of the market with the newest products that can be found almost anywhere.