Ever find yourself wishing that you could be fed various types of information in various forms by a device that, itself, is vague in form and purpose? Well, if so, you’re missing out on a quiet tech revolution that brings us such bizarre little devices as the Nabaztag (above, left) on the high end and the P.C. Gizmo (above, right) on the low end. What are these things? They’re, uh, “Internet devices” that sure look friendly enough. Resembling some sort of creature or another, they connect to the Internet and deliver various types of information to you while chirping, talking, beeping, and/or moving or shaking various body parts.
In the case of the higher-priced Nabaztag, you can expect an oddly-shaped creature that looks vaguely like a rabbit to go online, wirelessly and check the weather, your email, and more, automatically. Nabaztag is wifi enabled so you don’t have to worry about more USB cables cluttering up your desk.
The cheaper P.C. Gizmo performs similarly but can do much less. Connecting via USB cable to your Windows-based machine (they weren’t kidding when they named it “P.C. Gizmo”), it can tell you when you’ve got email, new instant messages, and even a Skype call coming in.
But there’s more to be curious about regarding these 21st century information-providing gadgets…
Like why would anyone need them? It’s hard to imagine someone sitting at their computer and wishing some little gadget next to them would announce they have new email. Well, there is the smartphone, but that serves a few other purposes, too–unlike P.C. Gizmo. In every way, it’s just a dumb little, well, “gizmo” that really doesn’t do much but entertain you (or your kid) instead of just delivering info to you and letting you get back to work.
The more expensive (read: $150US+) Nabaztag is even worse. It does a rather large number of things, according to its official website, www.Nabaztag.com, promising to distract the crap out of you all day long. Bye-bye productivity.
What does it do? Apparently, it responds to voice commands, can read the weather, the news, play podcasts, read you books and, again as the website promises, “free you from your computer.” Of course, since it’s wifi, that means you won’t get very far from the computer, but hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?
Forget that many of us have smartphones that probably do most of the same stuff, Nabaztag is CUTE! Granted, your phone handles similar tasks in a much more utilitarian way, but Nabaztag or any of it’s knock-offs (like the P.C. Gizmo) are perfect wastes of money for anyone who values design and “adorableness” over, you know, money.
Nabaztag is available at numerous online outlets for somewhere between $150 and $200. Meanwhile, P.C. Gizmo has an official product page at B2stuf.com. There’s no mention of price on said page but it was featured at CES this year so maybe we’ll see it before the holidays? Regardless, if you can’t find it for less than $40US, it’s probably priced to high to be worth it.
These are really neat but I just don’t think that I would pay that amount of money for something that I could look up myself.
They look cool, but I’ll pass with that kind of price, especially if it’s just going to constantly distract me.