Living in a cave for the last few years? Then you haven’t heard of Nabaztag/tag – the little plastic white rabbit developed by the French company Violet. This new version of the ear-wagging WiFi toy is much more sophisticated than it’s predecessor, packed with a myriad of new features.
While the original Nabaztag took its instructions from the computer, the Nabaztag/tag has been imbued with sensory capabilities based on its built-in microphone opening the way for additional applications such as:
- Voice activation, allowing you to talk to your rabbit. Give him orders like, "Boston weather!" and Nabaztag/tag will tell you. Say, "Footsie!" and you’ll get the FT index. "Play dead!" and Nabaztag/tag goes to sleep.
- The Nabaztag can also read and ‘dictate’ voice messages by speaking into the Rabbit’s navel.
- Using its microphone the Nabaztag analyzes the surrounding sound level to "guess" if someone is in the room. Those who send you messages can decide whether they’ll only be played when someone’s there to receive them.
- Audio Streaming: Nabaztag now streams sound continuously from any sound source on the internet or PC. (This was limited to 45 seconds in the original version.) It plays internet radio, accesses podcasts, listen to a music collection or personal play-lists. Nabaztag/tag has an audio output (mini-jack plug) through which external speakers or headphones can be connected.
- The mini-jack plug is also a way to connect Nabaztag/tag to objects that react to music, but aren’t ‘smart’. For instance, you could connect an iDog to Nabaztag/tag enabling your iDog to receive messages, too.
- Nabaztag/tag comes with a more powerful WPA Wireless encryption in addition to the more basic WEP encryption. The New Nabaztag/tag has a volume switch, which looks like none other than a… bunny tail, of course.
- Maybe the most interesting new application built into the Nabaztag/tag’s is the ability to "sniff" other objects using an RFID tag reader. RFID comes in the shape of a label, or tag, which can be affixed to any item in order to make it identifiable. In the future, Nabaztag/tag will be able to recognize any item and therefore ‘perceive’ the presence of such objects. For example – wave your house keys under Nabaztag/tag’s nose to tell him you’re home, and he’ll instantly email your partner to let him/her know. Let him smell a deck of cards, and he’ll play with you. Dress up your Rabbit in Samurai garb, and he might start talking Japanese. Assign a Nabaztag/tag action or behavior to any of your everyday objects. (This feature will be developed in 2007.)
The Nabaztag/tag is already shipping in Europe and should start soon in the U.S. for around $150 – not that much considering he can basically replace your family.
More details on the Nabaztag/tag on Violet’s Nabaztag website.
