Nabaztag:tag |
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| Developer | Violet |
|---|---|
| CPU | PIC18F6525 |
| Online services | weather forecast stock market report news headlines alarm clock e-mail alerts RSS-Feeds MP3-Streams |
Nabaztag (Armenian for "hare") was a Wi-Fi enabled ambient electronic device in the shape of a rabbit, invented by Rafi Haladjian and Olivier Mével, and manufactured by the company Violet[1]. Nabaztag was designed to be a "smart object" comparable to those manufactured by Ambient Devices; it can connect to the Internet (for example to download weather forecasts, read its owner's email, etc.). It was also customizable and programmable to an extent. Sylvain Huet developed most of the embedded code of all Violet objects. Sebastien Bourdeauducq developed the Wi-Fi driver [2]. Antoine Schmitt has been their behavior designer and Jean-Jacques Birgé their sound designer (together they have also composed Nabaz'mob, an opera for 100 Nabaztag). Maÿlis Puyfaucher (who features its French voice) wrote all the original texts pronounced by the rabbit.
On 20 October 2009, following a long period of technical difficulties, ultimately leading to Violet's bankruptcy, Mindscape purchased Violet[3].
In the fall of 2010 Mindscape announced a third generation Nabaztag, called "Karotz"[4].
On 27 July 2011, Mindscape stopped the maintenance of the Nabaztag and released its source code [5].
On the 23rd December 2011 it was announced that the Nabaztag rabbits would be 'coming back to life' on December 24th 2011 at midnight via email to those with Violet accounts. The Nabaztag.com site now shows a message about this Nabaztag revival.
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Out of the box, Nabaztag is 23 cm in height and weighs 418 g. It can send and receive MP3s and messages that are read out loud as well as perform the following services (by either speaking the information out loud or using indicative lights): weather forecast, stock market report, news headlines, alarm clock, e-mail alerts, RSS-Feeds, MP3-Streams and others.
There is an API, with bindings for multiple programming languages including Java, Perl, Python[6] or PHP[7], available to program the Nabaztag[8].
At first talking only in English and French, as of June 2007, Nabaztag fully supports services in German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch.
Nabaztag owners can join social networks to share photos and videos on websites like Flickr and YouTube. Users can create podcasts (dubbed Nabcasts by Violet). There are currently over 100 of these available, mostly in English and French, created by different users on a variety of topics.
Since Nabaztag can be programmed to provide new services using an API as stated above, there are dozens of services available to date from other users, including a Dashboard widget and a lottery alarm.
December 2006 (most notably around the Christmas 25 December timeframe) a huge quantity of sold rabbits caused many troubles for Violet, the maker of Nabaztag. The Nabaztag device acts as a client to the French-based servers. When users attempted to register their new rabbits, the centralized servers were unable to handle the demand resulting in Service disruptions, server unavailability and data integrity problems caused by users creating multiple half-finished registrations. This resulted in a major customer service problem for Violet. The fundamental philosophy of Nabaztag (that all objects should be connected together on the internet and connected by a server maintained by Violet) is not always working (e.g. the server sometimes cannot cope with volume of traffic, services have had to be switched off, unreliable response times often slow to hours rather than seconds).
In March 2008, Violet changed their server infrastructure and bunny software to use the standard XMPP protocol. Bunnies are now sometimes reacting within seconds, instead of minutes, although this is by no means consistent and long delays do occur sometimes. The change caused service disruptions and problems for a couple of weeks.
The device embeds a PIC18F6525 microcontroller, a BenQ PC card 802.11b Wi-Fi adaptor, an ml2870a Audio-PCM sound generator, an ADPCM converter, two motors to activate the ears, a TLC5922 LED controller, and a small amount of memory.
The embedded software handles the TCP/IP stack and WiFi driver. It also implements a virtual machine which is able to execute up to 64kb of code. A dedicated assembly language exists to program the different features of the device.
Out on market on 12 December 2006, Nabaztag/tag is an improved model of Violet's Nabaztag. The new model supports mp3 audio streaming for internet radio (with preset radio stations and an app allowing to add your own stream that does not work) and podcasts. This second version Nabaztag has also added a microphone that allows for voice activation of some of its services. However, despite text on the website claiming that new services will be available soon, the number of working voice activated services remains less than a handful. A final added feature is a built-in RFID reader to detect special-purpose RFID tags (i.e. ISO/IEC 14443 Type B). Nabaztag advertisement is presenting the ability to identify objects (depicted are e.g. keys).
Nabaztag/tag can, as of November 2007, use RFID tags to read special edition versions of children's books by the French publisher Gallimard Jeunesse[9]. In October 2008, Violet launched RFID Children's Books with Penguin Publishing House[10]. Further RFID services and support have been promised.[11] Violet has now started selling the Zstamps and Nano:ztag's (little mini Rabbits with Zstamps inside them) and another called mir:ror which is its own RFID system separate from the Nabaztag.
The Wi-Fi was also upgraded to support WPA encryption, and now uses a cheaper SoftMAC card instead of the BenQ device which embedded its own 802.11 protocol stack.[12]
Mindscape, filing for bankruptcy, discontinued the Nabaztag/tag web service in late July 2011.
Alternative servers are available, including:
Karotz is the third generation Nabaztag, and first to be released since the Mindscape purchase. Like its predecessors, Karotz connects to the Internet using Wifi and has RFID reading capability. Additionally, it includes an integrated web cam, a USB port (which can be used for power as well as connectivity), and 256MB of onboard storage. Karotz was released in April 2011[13].
Violet was awarded honourable mentions, category Small companies of the DME Award 2007 for Nabaztag[14].
Nabaztag/tag was awarded for Netxplorateur of the Year in 2008[15].
Nabaz'mob was awarded by Prix Ars Electronica Digital Musics 2009 (Award of Distinction)[16].