I found out about Nabaztag last fall and have been completely in love with these little guys every since. These little bunnies are just so completely fun - he listens with his belly button!

Lately I have been thinking of a sad sight I see often - a person, walking around utterly disengaged with the world around them, head buried in a mobile phone. It’s evidence of an incredibly unfortunate relationship that we humans have established with technology objects. They demand we disengage from the world and focus on the object - give deference to it, instead of the world.

Nabaztag sits in that funny product space of “technology pets” with the Roomba and Tamagachi. Unlike a computer, television, or mobile phone that demand we disengage with the world and give deference to the technology object during use, these technology pets are more integrated and ambient. We develop an emotional connection to them.

People love their mobile phones - but the nature of our relationship to them is different than the Nabaztag. Mobile phones tend to engender product lust, that fades. Which got me wondering - what if mobile phones were designed to foster and encourage this kind of pet-like relationship? What if they were more ambient like the Nabaztag - or pet-like and needed nurturing like a tamagotchi? How would it change the nature of mobile experiences?