Geeks in Paradise | Brian Chee » The NOC Pet

January 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

The NOC Pet

TAGS: Toys and tools

 

This smart WiFi bunny can read RSS feeds, websites, blog, get your attention about an incoming email or IM. Created by Violet of France the Nabaztag at first feels like a new cult toy like the pet rock, but could hop into the NOC as an unobtrusive network status indicator. Using a community based toolkit this rabbit has an extensive API extending it beyond pet rock status into a real troubleshooting tool. Heck it even has a Mac OSx dashboard widget. Yeah it all sounds silly, but a Nabaztag is a lot cheaper (and smaller) than dedicating a PC for network status. (ie. 1st LED is WiFi association, 2nd LED is DNS lookup, 3rd LED is external connectivity) Using the available Ruby or PERL toolkits you can have the LEDs, voice or ears indicate just about anything about your network you want. I'm thinking I should have my rabbit get my attention for upcoming meetings, and have my bunny read me SMS messages from the wife. Hmm.. maybe I could combine a nabaztag with Violet's DAL to indicate WAN activity levels?

My only wish is that the Nabaztag web site would fix some of the broken links on their website under tools and API.

/brian chee

Brian Chee is a Senior Contributing Editor with InfoWorld Magazine and is a researcher with the University of Hawaii's School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).

Posted by Brian Chee on January 12, 2007 03:14 PM

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