Flutterby™! : Nabaztag

An amusing Twitter exchange between Tom and Dori has alerted me to the presence of the Nabaztag. You'd think from the name that it was something out of the Lovecraft mythos, or maybe eastern European Jewish tradition, but, no, it's this silly little WiFi enabled device with a speech synthesizer, a motor or two (to drive the "rabbit ears" that denote... something) and a few LEDs, and some sort of sensor that (I couldn't deal with the web site long enough to track down too many specifics) may even have some smell capabilities.

And the whole thing plugs in, recognizes your wireless network, and then is driven from their web site, with integration to IM and email for notifications and the like.

I'm still not sure that it's not a lurking horror that slithers in the shadows waiting to suck your soul, but it does look like it could actually be a semi-useful bit of consumer robotics as well. Not so much that I'd actually buy one, but I think it's a trend to watch.

Note: That web site is really NSFW, with gawdawful slow flash and lots of cutesy annoying music and such.