Ralf the Shark goes on a bizarre journey involving a virtual world, a piece of string and a rabbit. Yes you read it right, a rabbit. If you fail to see any connection between virtual worlds and rabbits read on...
This may seem like one of our joke articles for some people this
was not by intention - in fact there is a semi-serious and
interesting side to this rather bizarre experiment. The idea
originally started with an email from Alberto of Hispagrid ( who
incidentally also contibutes our weekly Maxping summaries in Spanish. ) The idea
began as all good ideas should begin, it begins with a rabbit.
When I saw this rabbit for the first time, it was just
fun. Then I gave it some thought - I was around the Internet before
the "web" - www - a graphical something or other. Then the web came
and companies slowly started to join. They had websites - but often
no access to the web itself. They did not really use email, even if
they had an account. After the first user really wanted to
order or ask questions, companies found it difficult to integrate
with this new-fangled media. Many people asked me at the time
to receive their emails by fax. Or at least a notification via Fax.
This was quite a popular service for some years to come!
So back to the present, here we are, entrepreneurs and early
adopters. Geeks and nerds, techy people and devs, and out there is
the real life. They have Internet, maybe even some (for sure not
all) have a computer capable of 3D viewer. Will they be 24/7
in a virtual shop ? No, they wont.
Maybe here is the same problem as before? If you run
a shop in real life, you will as well not react on email more or
less ad hoc. You would need something like a doorbell that people
inworld can ring and get a notification about operating hours and
expected wait time. You as a regular human need an optical cue or
audio signal that some event has occured somewhere - be it an email
arriving or say for example a client in your virtual space - and
wouldn't it be great if that audio signal didn't just go
"bing-bong" but did something more useful like read you the
message.
Well here is the answer to all your problems - a rabbit .
The curiously named "Nabaztag" rabbit is able to read RSS-feeds
and forward them via speech, it can also check your legacy email
(hehe) - and has a API. It can be triggered via http. So
you can have sound, text2speech (multi language and nice quaility).
If that's not amazing enough then don't forget that his ears can
move, and lights flash!
Sounds good to be notified from your virtual shop and
webshop-emails - but you will never ever have network cable in you
cool shop - and the only place that makes sense is in the middle of
it. Ok - got a power outlet somewhere ? Maybe even
electrical light ? Cool - this rabbit needs a WLAN (unsecured
*cough*, WEP, WPA), no cable. Yep, it's a "Wireless Wabbit" (and
before you start throwing carrots at me - I was obliged to get that
gag in by the Editor)
Setup is quite painless, it can be switched to access point mode
so you can connect to the internet. Once the rabbit is hooked up to
the net, everything else is done at the server of Violet, the
creator company. So, you can configure it for many many many
services via their website. (Just remember to change the language
to English from time to time, this seems to have the biggest range
of services on offer.)
The API uses the same server, So it is only a short bunny
hop to stick a script in a prim!
For you technical types I have included a selection parameters
you can feed your rabbit with to give you some idea of the type of
functionality it can deliver:
| sn |
Serial number of the Nabaztag
that will receive events |
| idmessage |
The number of the message to
send. This number can refer to a message in the Library or a
personal MP3 file that you have downloaded. You find this
identification number under the title of the track you are
listening to |
| posright |
Position of the right ear
between 0 and 16 (0 = ear horizontal) |
| posleft |
Position of the left ear |
| token |
The token is a series of digits
given when you activate the Nabaztag receiver. This extra
identification limits the risks of spam, since, in order to send a
message, you need to know both the serial number and the token |
| tts |
Allows you to send a text
configured for speech synthesis |
| chor |
Sending a choreography (dance
sequence) to your rabbit |
| ears=ok |
Send the position of the ears to
your rabbit |
| voice |
Allows you to choose the voice
that will read the message |
| multiply |
This parameter only works if you
have more than one rabbit |
(You can get a actual documentation at http://api.nabaztag.com .)
So after a bit of tinkering, I had my rabbit not only telling me
the summaries of Maxping articles, but if somebody sent me a
message in one of my regions - well hey - the rabbit would tell me
the message.
The next thing to investigate will likely be RFID-tags to
initiate an in-world action - I had no time to test-drive these,
but it seems promising. The RFID tags are called Ztamps. The Ztamps can trigger
Applications, on the Rabbit or the Mirror called product - which is
connected via USB.
So - what about selling Ztamps that
will actually download a virtual product ? The
product will maybe self-registering in a central database, so that
misuse is difficult. It could present a nice text2speech
greeting and a twitter "..got it" message in parallel. Much
power in RFID in general.
The point is that moving a plastic rabbit's ears around and
making it change colours and tell you messages may not seem
particularly impressive but as robots get more sophisticated we can
see interesting potential in the technology. After all, we create
avatars to represent ourself in virtual worlds, so why not create
"physical avatars" ie. robots to represent ourself in the real
world?
Now I think of it, why don't I just send the rabbit on my next
business trip? He could be my eyes and ears in the meeting - I can
just hang out in my virtual world and send it messages.
Finally I have grown to like my rabbit after having him at home
for a while, I may even get another one and see if plastic rabbits
interact in the same way that real ones do.
I would hate for it to get lonely when I was not around.