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Living With a Robotic Rabbit from France

by Joshua Fruhlinger on September 17, 2007 at 03:25 PM

Nabaztag / Tag

When a company calls to tell you that they want to send you an Internet-ready, robotic, talking, French rabbit, you say "yes." French company Violet was nice enough to send me a Nabaztag/Tag, a little Wi-Fi-enabled rabbit friend. With a glowing purple butt and some serious configuration options, the first couple weeks with my new digital pet have been somewhat life-changing.

What Is It?
For the uninitiated, Nabaztag/Tag is a little robotic rabbit that rotates its ears, reads news headlines, does Tai Chi, plays Internet radio, talks to other rabbits, and just kind of sits there, looking really cute.

What Does It Do?
It gets online via WiFi. You then configure your rabbit through a web-based interface. You can tell your rabbit to read you headlines from online sources like the BBC, recite stories as told by other Nabaztag enthusiasts, tell you the weather, or wake you up at a particular time. It also responds to a limited set of voice commands in case you need to know the weather or headlines immediately.

How Does It Work?
The online configurator also acts as a Nabaztag social network, where you can befriend other rabbits, send messages (which, of course, get read out-loud by the rabbit itself), and add little apps that make your rabbit do new things. There are even small applications that allow you to control your rabbit's ears in real-time even if you're not at home.

So Is It Cool?
I've lived with the Nabaztag for a couple weeks now, and the experience has been much like getting a new pet. At first, the rabbit was clumsy, not responding to online configuration changes and not responding to voice commands right away. I thought our little cute friend was broken at first. However, after a few days, she was reciting the time on the hour, reading headlines every 20 minutes, and even telling me stories about some Private Eye robotic rabbit with an attitude.

I'm so used to Nabaztag now that Violet is going to have to pry it from my fingers to get it back to France. She is, literally, my pet, and I kind of like her. The click-clock of the zen drums as she (mine is a girl -- I didn't have a choice in the matter) gets ready to tell you the time adds a certain house sound that, if you don't have real pets, kind of makes one feel a little less alone on a Sunday afternoon.

Pathetic, perhaps, but ingenious, yes.

So Is It Worth It?
At around $190 for the Nabaztag/tag that we tried, this isn't a cheap gadget. That said, it does stream music, flashes cool lights, reads you the news, tells you the weather, tells you the time on the hour, and is unquestionably cute as all geek get-out. House guests were fascinated and even now ask me how my pet is doing.

This could be the perfect non-pooping pet I've been waiting for.

Don't miss the gallery below for images of my rabbit as well as a look at the configurator website.

Nabaztag / Tag



Tags: breaking+news, france, nabaztag, top

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