Nabaztag

Nabaztag (Armenian for "hare", նապաստակ (napastak)) is 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. Nabaztag was designed to be a "smart object" comparable to those manufactured by Ambient Devices; it can connect to the Internet (to download weather forecasts, read its owner's email, etc.). It is 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. 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 that ultimately led to Violet's bankruptcy, Mindscape purchased Violet. In October 2010, Mindscape announced a third generation Nabaztag, called "Karotz". Karotz was released April 2012. On 27 July 2011, Mindscape stopped the maintenance of the Nabaztag and released its source code. On 23 December 2011, it was announced that the Nabaztag rabbits would be "coming back to life" on 24 December 2011 at midnight via email to those with Violet accounts. The required server service at Nabaztag.com has since stopped functioning, but other options exist including setting up a server using OpenNab software or installing NabaztagLives on a Raspberry Pi single-board computer.