Nabaztag

Nabaztag (Armenian for "rabbit") is a wi-fi enabled device resembling a cartoon rabbit. It connects to a local wi-fi network to provide services to any users nearby. It was designed by Violet, a company founded by two Parisian entrepreneurs named Rafi Haladjian and Olivier Mevel. [1]

Features

Currently, Nabaztag is able to sing, talk, flash colored lights within its translucent body, and move its ears. The rabbit, using free services available on the official website, can tell the time every hour, read news articles, use an mp3 as an alarm, forecast the weather, read stock market indices and inform of an incoming email, among other things. With a paid subscription to the website, it can also read RSS feeds, use customised personal email alerts, and use more than one personalised alarm. The rabbit also has it's own 'personality' and 'moods', and can also have a rabbit 'mate' with which it can communicate directly through the movement of the rabbit's ears (called Ear Talk); when one of the Nabaztag mates' ears is moved, the mate's ear will move accordingly. [2][3]

The device embeds a PIC18F6525 microcontroller, a BenQ 802.11b WiFi PCMCIA card, a ml2870a Audio-PCM sound generator, and ADPCM converter, two motors to activate the ears, a TCL5922 LED controller and some 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.

External links and references

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