Here comes EVERYTHING!

Written on 25th September 2008                                                                                                              9 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

Violet is the company behind the nabaztag, the funny abstract rabbit that reacts to electronic impulses by blinking, talking and moving. Today at PICNIC the co-founder and chairman of Violet, Rafi Haladjian, talked about how the nabaztag was their first effort at connecting, well, everything. One of his slides simply showed:

“Goal: connect everything

step 1: connect rabbits
step 2: connect everything else”

His only comment for that slide was “We got step 1 covered and now it is time for step two” to much amusement of the audience.

Turns out Haladjian wasn’t joking. Within a few weeks Violet will start offering the Mir:ror. A simple device you can hook up to your computer via USB with a built-in RFID reader. It will be able to read everything you already own which contains an RFID chip but also comes with a bunch of ‘ztamps’.

These stamp-like pieces of adhesive plastic will also contain RFID chips and you will be able to tag the “7995 other items in your house that don’t know how to communicate, yet”. Apparently we all own about 8000 items of which only 5 know how to talk to the rest of the world. Violet’s goal is to make them all smart and connected.

This means you will be able to tag your umbrella and then hold it up to the mir:ror which will automatically launch your favorite weather report sites. Hold up your car keys to the mir:ror and it will give you traffic conditions and your calendar.

The possibilities for using the mir:ror and Ztamps are endless and really challenge everyone’s creativity.

What would YOU use Ztamps for?

frid, mir:ror, nabaztag, picnic, picnic08, Rafi Haladjian, violet, ztamps

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