Tuesday, February 05, 2008

RFID-enabled Nabaztag/tag

Nabaztag is a Wi-Fi-enabled device toy in the shape of a rabbit, that uses sound, lights, changes color and moves its ears to provide you with real-time information about information it gathers from the Internet.

Its name comes from the Armenian word for "rabbit", but don't let yourself fool either for its name or its appearance. Nabaztag is actually a pretty "smart object", technologically speaking.
The bunny features a microcontroller, a Wi-Fi adaptor, a sound generator, an ADPCM converter, two motors to activate the ears, a LED controller, and a small amount of memory for a virtual machine capable of executing up to 64kb of code.

Nabaztag can connect to the Internet to read emails, deliver podcasts, download weather forecasts and since he is fully programmable based on any RSS-enabled content thanks to a dedicated assembly language, he could even alert you when a stock changes price, for example.

The latest version ofthe Nabaztag. called the Nabaztag/tag comes with a microphone placed in his belly that allows it to recognize speech and reply accordingly activating some of its services.
It also supports mp3 audio streaming for internet radio and podcasts.

Another feature added since November 2007 is a built-in RFID reader that allows him to use RFID tags to read special edition versions of children's books by the French publisher Editions Gallimard Jeunesse.
An RFID tag is an object that can be incorporated into an object or an animal for the purpose of identification using radiowaves. RFID tags are being used today for many purpose such as Passports, Product tracking, Animal identification, Inventory systems, Human implants, Libraries, Schools and Universities.
When an RFID tagged book is placed in front of the Nabaztag, he retrieves a recording of the story from the Internet and begins to read it out. The rabbit's ears act as fast-forward or rewind controls.
The rabbit also remembers where it reached in the book so it can resume the story-telling from where he stopped.
Further RFID services and support for the Nabaztag/tag have been promised for the near future.



More Info:
Nabaztag Official Website
Nabaztag's Blog

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