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Wireless Networking The Internet Toys Hardware

Nabaztag the WiFi Bunny 92

Posted by Zonk from the cute-and-informational dept.
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."
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Nabaztag the WiFi Bunny More

Nabaztag the WiFi Bunny

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  • aroma (Score:5, Funny)

    by rd4tech ( 711615 ) * on Saturday September 24, 2005 @05:54AM (#13636973)
    "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...

    • Re:aroma (Score:3, Funny)

      by putko ( 753330 )
      When you get an email from a spammer, it shoots out a noxious brown liquid that smells like fish emulsion. But it does it bukkake-style, so it shoots all over your face in in your mouth. Gelatinous bits dribble off your chin. And then you know you've got some spam!

      On a serious note, does anyone think this device could lead to trouble? I once had a cell that only work people used. I used the default ringtone. Everytime it rang, I jumped. When I think of it now I have a stress reaction. It got to be really ba
    • I've unfortunately learned to avoid any computer peripherals that appeal to any senses other than hearing and seeing.

      Touch, smell, taste, and vision of the dead just aren't ready for the mainstream yet.

    • Re:aroma (Score:3, Interesting)

      by utnow ( 808790 )
      does this remind anyone of this? [thinkgeek.com]

      • Re:aroma (Score:2, Insightful)

        by chris234 ( 59958 )
        Somewhat, although unlike the Orb this doesn't appear to require a monthly service charge. I always kinda liked the idea of the Orb, but paying for service for a wireless device that would always be in a WiFi covered area seemed silly to me.

    • "The main question that I had for the rep was this: what's to keep someone from haX0ring up some sort of rank, rotting flesh smell and mailing it to someone with a name like "spring showers" or something so that they wind up stinking up their workstation? The rep tried to assure me that this was somehow impossible because the machine didn't carry those categories of rank odors like rotting flesh, flatulence, etc. Still, I remained unconvinced. Then he started talking about Digiscents' designs on the gaming

    • I was thinking how great it would be to have this thing reproduce the odor, er, I mean aroma that I often make [pull my finger!] for my lovely wife. I would want it to do this whenever I email her, just like the article reads. She could keep it on her desk at work.

  • First Thought (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24, 2005 @05:57AM (#13636981)
    It would go nice with my hammer.
  • ... 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?
  • 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. [imdb.com]

  • I'm waiting for WiFi . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by kfg ( 145172 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @06:14AM (#13637012)
    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
    • A Hello Kitty the spits up a real simulated hairball when there's a sale at Penney's?

      Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth, so I don't know where the hairballs will come out...
    • I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one KFG (you're still one of my favorite /. posters though ;).

      I'm gonna get one of these things for my girlfriend, and I would seriously own a Tux version of this myself. I think it would be a fun thing to hack to do all kinds of neat things in Linux (tell you when torrents complete, etc.) I hope this company comes out with a lot more of these, and if they're nice enough, open up the toy a little more for developers.
      • Well, perhaps I'm jaded by being a guy who's comfortable with a soldering iron in his hand, or perhaps that simply makes me aware how simple the device really is.

        Open it up? There's nothing to open up. Really. It's just a blinkenlichten box in a bunny suit (ok, the ear thingy is spinnenmoteren, but that's really just the same thing as a blinkenlicht when you get down to it).

        Learn how to use your computer/the Internet to switch an LED on and off and you can just make any device like this you want, for a frac

  • Instructions for Guaranteed Bunny Death (Score:3, Funny)

    by wiremuse ( 900017 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @06:19AM (#13637022)
    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."

  • the first living, intelligent and connected lamp.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lysergic.acid ( 845423 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @06:23AM (#13637027) Homepage

    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.

    • . . .novelties with very mundane technology that's just hyped up. . .

      Blinkenlichten in a bunny suit.

      KFG
    • but how is it living and intelligent? because it's got colored lights that change colors?

      That was good enough for Color Kinetics [colorkinetics.com], 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 floo

  • So close... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tedrlord ( 95173 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @06:26AM (#13637036)
    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?

    • Re:So close... (Score:1, Troll)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      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.

      I realize that cute females are scarce amongst the Slashdot crowd but come on! ;-)
    • Why the hell isn't it already here?

      Simple enough, people don't want them. They're perfectly happy just pushing the "on" button of the radio if they want a weather report or to hear a song. They can even carry the "on" button around with them these days.

      You could, if you really wanted to, just plug the radio into The Clapper; and we've seen how that's had a cultural impact equal to the cell phone.

      KFG
    • > As far as I can tell, this is kind of pointless.

      It's a fucking wifi-enabled rabbit that dances when you get an email.
      How much more pointless does it have to be before it's more than 'kind of pointless' ? :)

    • 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 lev
      • It's not reliable right now, but it's possible. My voice seems really good for voice recognition, but my sister for instance cannot for the life of her get any computers to respond to her. Even so, it's possible to make a device that can understand a certain number of set commands spoken by a particular person, especially if the person or machine is trained to adapt to the situation. It's not quite ready for prime time, true, but I think it would still go over very well as a Sharper Image type of thing.
  • 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.
  • That Nabaztag was going to turn out to be a synonym for Kancho [wikipedia.org]? Poor bunny!

  • Nabaztag (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Digital Pizza ( 855175 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @06:58AM (#13637094)
    With a catchy name like that, what can possibly go wrong?
  • 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?

  • FYI.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by b166er_zeroone ( 814319 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @07:26AM (#13637139)
    Nabaztag means rabbit in Armenian

  • What's that smell...? (Score:4, Funny)

    by MythMoth ( 73648 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @07:32AM (#13637145) Homepage
    '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.
  • 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 [wikipedia.org] is waiting for?

  • Anthro-PC (Score:2, Funny)

    by Keruo ( 771880 )
    some case modding and you have your own anthro-pc!
  • 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.....
  • 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.
    • You are probably thinking about Ambient devices, http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/index.html [ambientdevices.com] a few years ago they started with the stock marked orb, then the weather beacon. They seem to target urban yuppie geeks who are trying to decrease the amount of "cute" things in their decorating. The tech is RF based, and by subscribing to the service you can change what is displayed. I have the weather beacon, I like it. I'll save the customer raves for Amazon.

  • This looks like a really fun idea (Score:4, Funny)

    by jessecurry ( 820286 ) <jesse@jessecurry.net> on Saturday September 24, 2005 @08:56AM (#13637335) Homepage Journal
    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?

  • Beta tested one at work this summer (Score:5, Informative)

    by androse ( 59759 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @09:28AM (#13637464) Homepage
    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.

    • I think their business model is hella flawed too.. Hopefully this kind of 'smart object' will become more popular. I've seen a few on thinkgeek.com already, but I think there's quite a bit of potential in this area of network information visualisation appliances.. Japanese language nazi - 'kawai' make good digital pianos 'kawai-i!' (pronounced kawai-e) is the favourite word of most Japanese schoolgirls .. 'cute!'
  • 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.

  • 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/ [nrg78.com] ::

  • Fishy (Score:1)

    by Yaro ( 860240 )
    ...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.
  • a 23 cm tall WiFi-enabled bunny
  • Does it run NetBSD ?
  • The company also makes 'La lampe Dal', a lamp that changes colors based on the weather

    This lamp is probably showing black right now for anyone on the Texas gulf coast.

    Oops, right, the power is out.

  • ..it's clearly "Hello Kitty" inspired.
    For 95 euros, I'm tempted to shoot one just to watch it die...
  • 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.

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