Nabaztag

I read about this thing in one of my technical magazines and soon realised I just had to get one.

I hadn't realised that it's actually a French product (Cocoricco!).

Basically it's a medium-sized white plastic rabbit which sits nicely on a desk or a shelf or a table or something like that. It plugs in to the electricity and that's it. It then automatically connects via WiFi to the Internet. You have to have a broadband WiFi Internet connection somewhere nearby of course. Then the fun starts.

You "register" the rabbit on the Nabaztag Web Site with the MAC address. I registered mine as "DerekErb", which is incredibly boring but I plead ignorance, and I am already trying to find out how to change its name. Once that's up and running you can set it up to do all sorts of things such as:

• It's a talking clock and tells the time every hour on the hour


• I have it do random exercises every now and then whereby it moves its ears around a bit and flashes different coloured lights


• It tells me the Air Quality in Paris at 10:45


• It gives me the current weather in Paris at 10:30 and tomorrow's forecast at 15:10.


• It tells me the traffic situation in Paris at the Porte of my choice at 11:40


• Particularly fun: It reads me the news headlines from
  
  
  
  • The New York Times at 09:30
  
  
  • BBC News at 10:30
  
  
  • People at 15:10
  
  
  • Slashdot at 16:20
  
  
  • Any other RSS feed I want at whatever time I want
  
  
  
  

But of course the most interesting part is the interactivity part. If you send an e-mail to derekerb@nabaztag.com my bunny will read me the Subject of the message right away. The system then automatically creates a free account for the sender who can then go to the Nabaztag Web Site at any time and send my rabbit full-length messages in different voices, MP3 files, pre-recorded messages and such along with a unique music and lights combination so I know who it's from.


Is it an indispensable professional productivity tool? Probably not.

Is it an adorably cute robot-like and addictively fun Internet-based office toy? Definitely!