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Nabaztag the WiFi Bunny
carre4 writes "A French company named Violet, the smart object company, has come out with Nabaztag, a 23 cm tall WiFi-enabled bunny that tells you about the weather, traffic jams, new emails through flashing lights and moving its ears. They have a Flash demo with Nabaztag's different messages. The company also makes 'La lampe Dal', a lamp that changes colors based on the weather and 'Le Pad Osmooze', a USB device that releases an aroma when you receive an email from a loved one."
"a USB device that releases an aroma when you receive an email from a loved one."
... and when you receive an email from a spammer...
It would go nice with my hammer.
I'd hate to think what smell that thing emits when you get spam.
It's just like that purple Bonzo Buddy thing - BUT IN REAL LIFE!
Imagine the spyware potential!
... is the names of their products. I mean "Nabaztag the WiFi Bunny"? It sounds either like a cartoon villain, or a new kind of pharmaceutical. Perhaps a failed idea for Pfizer's mascot? And "Le Pad Osmooze" ... I'm going to hope that sounded better in French. The only thing "Osmooze" brings to mind is 'osmosing ooze.' What the hell was on that focus group's mind?
Anyway, the products are mildly interesting, but their applications are weak. It seems like any time a company comes up with a peripheral, the first thing they do with it is find some way for it to notify you when you have email. For God's sake stop it, there are enough email notifiers out there already. There's got to be something better you can do with a 95-euro, 23-cm tall, talking, WiFi enabled, suspiciously Pokemon-esque talking bunny.
Isn't there?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
a 23 cm tall WiFi-enabled bunny that tells you about the weather, traffic jams, new emails through flashing lights and moving its ears.
You can never go too far.
merekat technology. That'll kick a WiFi bunny's cottony little arse.
Or how about a cute, plush Tux that burps real rancid herring smell everytime a kernel patch is released? A Hello Kitty the spits up a real simulated hairball when there's a sale at Penney's?
Boy, this technology stuff sure is fun. The future's so bright I have to go barf.
KFG
King Arthur: Consult the Book of Armaments.
Brother Maynard: Armaments, chapter two, verses nine through twenty-one.
Cleric: [reading] And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats and large chu...
Brother Maynard: Skip a bit, Brother...
Cleric: And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."
ok, i believe the connected part. but how is it living and intelligent? because it's got colored lights that change colors?
i dunno, these "smart" objects seem like pretty stupid and useless novelties with very mundane technology that's just hyped up with dumb descriptions for marketing like calling them "smart objects" that are living and intelligent, or a lamp that can blush just because it can change colors.
And yet so far.
As far as I can tell, this is kind of pointless. What it really needs is voice commands. If you have a small cute animal you can ask "What's the weather?" or "Play me a song" and have it follow your commands, that would be on the level of the cell phone, microwave oven, or even television in terms of cultural impact. An actual computer-based interactive device you can set on your kitchen table and ask for current information or to follow basic commands is the kind of near-future sci-fi thing they've been talking about for years. It's the object that we will take for granted ten years from now but will integrate itself into our daily lives.
The thing is, that doesn't seem far off at all right now. Sure, it would be an expensive gadget, but properly designed and marketed it would be bigger than the iPod among the rich, hip gadget people and soon everyone would need one. Sooner or later people wouldn't think anything of spending a thousand dollars on a little toy you can ask for movie listings, headlines, traffic, or just command to call Mom, listen to the radio, or play word games.
This should be possible. Why the hell isn't it already here?
[insert witty quote here]
Does it also tell you when the world is going to end?
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Too bad it's not original. And if the LED lamp already costs nearly $1000, I don't want to know what the bunny costs.
Still, you can expect more wireless enabled lamps, lights, displays, and objects. But we'll probably have to wait for more inspired designers than this company before people will be willing to put them in their homes.
. . .novelties with very mundane technology that's just hyped up. . .
Blinkenlichten in a bunny suit.
KFG
That Nabaztag was going to turn out to be a synonym for Kancho? Poor bunny!
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
With a catchy name like that, what can possibly go wrong?
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Looks cute, but I would think the novelty effect would wear of after a while.
Take BonziBuddy for example, I know completely different area, but the novelty of reading emails out and singing or dancing wears of.
Does it recognise your voice?
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
Nabaztag means rabbit in Armenian
...Just more annoying.
'Le Pad Osmooze', a USB device that releases an aroma when you receive an email from a loved one."
Uh oh, I think your ex just sent you an email. This smells bad. Really bad.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
Paris, 15:09. My Nabaztag's ears are moving. Virginie has just got to her office in New York. It's a secret code between us. When she moves her Rabbit's ears, the ears on mine move at the very same time.
I don't know...sounds kinda kinky to me. Could this be the breakthrough that Dildonics is waiting for?
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
some case modding and you have your own anthro-pc!
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
This is the universally-hated Paper Clip Guy in hardware.
Happily, it's $1,000+ (I think, given the devaluation of the US dollar). So I'll never see one.
Sound like a mix between the Tagalog nabasag ("broken" as in glass), and "busted". Not what you want for your bunnies.
I've seen the Demo! You can move the ears of the bunny, and your friends bunny will move the ears in the same way. I think it's cool. But it would be more cool, if you could talk into the Bunny's ears so the other side can hear it!
It keeps going..... and going..... and going..... and going.....
I quote others only in order the better to express myself. -- Michel de Montaigne
But can it make toast? Otherwise this isn't news.
wast something like this on thinkgeek not too long ago? heh i rmb seeing them show this globe thing which changes colour and you can set what it is triggered by. works by rf or smthing.
This does look like a really fun idea, but if only I could get it in something other than a rabbit... Maybe a 23cm Hooters girl?
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
WiFi Bunny + Airsoft Sentry Gun = fun!
"Nabaztag" sound like the name of a demon or something to me ...
"Xis Xis Xis eehT nommuS I Nabaztag Xis Xis Xis"
A designer from work was beta testing one this summer. I had to troubleshoot the thing because it takes for granted that your wireless network is wide open (but it isn't too bad: the bunny has his MAC address stuck to his rear end).
I didn't have much fun with email and weather notification, but sending audio clips to the thing had its moments. They have a fast selection of stuff on the site, and also pre-recordered female voices with a super cutsy accent saying super custy stuff about love, relationships, etc, it seems like the French interpretation of what Japanese schoolgirls find "kawaï".
What really got on my nerve is that under the oozing fabricated cuteness, they charge you for every audio clip you send to the bunny. You get 10 or 15 free ones to start off with, but after that you have to pay. Basically, all the bunny does is poll a server and download highly compressed audio clips and other data, and play and display them. Paying for simply using the damn thing seems like a ripoff to me (you have to buy the object first). So the mix of pseudo cuteness and greedy commercial behaviour didn't work for me.
I was on the verge of setting up a proxy to analyse the traffic, and possibly create a free gateway as a webservice (blabla), but I guess they probably encrypt the traffic, and it wasn't worth the effort.
In one word : yawn. Then again, I'm certainly not their target.
This should be possible. Why the hell isn't it already here?
I can tell you haven't spent much time working with the state of the art in devices that use voice recognition. (Your cell phone's voice dial doesn't count.)
In a word, because it would suck and be immensely frustrating. Only people who are clueful enough to realize they have to speak cleary and evenly and remember to turn off the TV and get everyone else in the room to shut up would be able to get the thing to recognize them with an acceptable level of accuracy.
Buy Konfabulator. It'll be cheaper, easier, and more useful.
Not to be pedantic or anything, but...
Nabaztag means "rabbit" in Armenian, as some others have posted. IMHO, the name sounds cooler if you pronounce it like the Armenians do - just pronounce all the a's like ahh's. Kinda like the a's in the movie title "Amistad".
Cheers.
That was good enough for Color Kinetics, a company formed by a bunch of MIT braniacs. They've managed to patent out to wazoo devices that have multicolored LEDs that mix/change colors. Something that takes a uC, 3 channels of D/A, and a little simple math.
And yes, they've been aggressively threatening/sueing to defend said patents. And yes, they're taking advantage of the resulting monopoly- a color kinetics floodlight will set you back $1k or more.
Please help metamoderate.
pregnant... it give a whole new meaning to "the rabbit died"
Isn't this what Mark Weiser was talking about with ubiquitous/pervasive computing - computers disappearing from sight?
I'm a big fan of Tufte's work - this is just a new kind of visual literacy IMHO..
Very cool stuff - I want to see 'smart objects' on the shelves of my supermarket, next to the CD-Rs and telephone plug adaptors.
:: Anonymus B :: 'It is better to travel well than to arrive' -Buddha :: http://nrg78.com/ ::
...a USB device that releases an aroma when you receive an email from a loved one...
Why part of the loved one does it smell like ? I smell something fishy here.
Nabaztag, He's NOT Evil!
Stop laughing! Serious, this time!
No, he is NOT from the fourth circle of Hell!
And he is NOT a Republican!
But who needs a mouth? Seriously, with abilities like that...
(Link NSFW. Obviously.)
a 23 cm tall WiFi-enabled bunny
Havoc Video
Does it run NetBSD ?
When fiction hits reality, dreams have no air-bag.
This lamp is probably showing black right now for anyone on the Texas gulf coast.
Oops, right, the power is out.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Nabaztag is the Killer Bunny of DOOM!
...fart...
"Nabaztag" must be French for "annoying little bastard."
..it's clearly "Hello Kitty" inspired.
For 95 euros, I'm tempted to shoot one just to watch it die...
"Plus, it communicates with other rabbits located elsewhere thanks to a coded language you can create (such as a specific position of the ear to show that you're busy)."
Surely the thing can't be that granular, a bit of plastic with moving ears?
I could imagine some cool things to do with the API on this. How about if you could program the 'bunny' to do different things depending on the status of daemons running on your server. How about with web traffic, etc. In the event of a heavy traffic your bunny could be like the old 'canary in the mine' ... when the Nabaztag starts convulsing and writhing... you know a slashdotting is coming.