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 Nabaztag the WiFi bunny is alive and well, after some server issues on Christmas cost him some negative publicity. Now, he connects quickly and is truly an attention getting gadget for the folks who have everything. He reads emails, plays MP3s, chimes when you have an email, and send messages back and forth to friend rabbits you set up online. You can also subscribe to "Nabcasts" or create a "Nabcast", set him up as an alarm clock, and set his level of "quirkiness" - he will then talk to you at random times of the day.
On reviewing WiFi's answer to the pet rock, we found that he worked quickly right out of the box on an unencrypted WiFi network. When we tried to move him to an encrypted network, we had issues until we entered "My Burrow" on the Nabaztag site, which gave directions for entering your WEP key. He is fully connected when all three lights on his belly are green.
We had fun emailing him little messages from another PC, and really enjoyed the incoming message sound selection they have to play as a message notifier. There are a quite a few Nab users now, however, most are from Europe. Some of the downloadable Nabcasts were British humor at its finest. We did experience a several minute delay between sending, and receiving, a spoken message or Nabcast.
He reads any RSS feed you set up for him, and this comes in handy if you want to stay in the know while multitasking. It also occured to us that he would make a great gift for the visually impaired.
His belly shows the weather forecast, and if you happen to live in Paris, you can also get a traffic forecast. The team at Violet have plans to expand this service to other cities in the near future.
If you have a Nabaztag, you MUST name it. The site then has a login for "friends" of Nab users, who can type in any message which will then be read by the bunny through referring to its name. The applications here are endless.
One drawback is that he is not completely wireless, he does require a power plug. All those lights and RF circuitry evidentially require a lot of power. We are hoping for a battery powered version in the future, so our Bunny can come with us to the local WiFI hot spots.
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