December 15, 2006 3:43 PM PST

Nabaztag 2.0

Posted by Erica Ogg

The Wi-Fi bunny has done what rabbits do best: multiplied.

Formally known as Nabaztag--it's Armenian for 'rabbit'--the toy from French company Violet that last summer grabbed geek attention worldwide has gotten an upgrade already.

(Credit: Violet)

The new guy is called Nabaztag/tag, and besides reading e-mails, RSS feeds through a Wi-Fi connection to a computer, acting as an alarm clock or playing music, he can now respond to sound via a voice-recognition device in its belly. That means owners can talk to their bunny, but it also means it knows when its owner is in the room. When it hears voices, it will begin relaying e-mail, text messages and news, weather and stocks.

In addition, the Nabaztag/tag can play sound continuously from Web radio stations, MP3 files, podcasts or books, and has been granted a sense of smell. An RFID tag reader lets owners wave an object in front of its nose as a signal to play cards, read books or, by the "scent" of a person's keys, will know who has just arrived home.

As if that weren't enough, the bunny also acts like a personalized Digg-er, searching the series of tubes for news or nonsense you'd be amused by or at the very least, find interesting.

Nabaztag 2.0 is slightly more expensive than the original, $165 versus $150.

Fellow Craver Daniel Terdiman called the first version "a fun, if somewhat confounding toy."

If confounding fun is your thing, you can adopt one here.