Availabot IM USB Puppet for iChat

June 28th, 2006

Do you remember those little toys when you were a kid that were characters and when you pushed the bottom they fell over? Well that is basically what the Availabot is, just USB powered. This is the strangest IM notification app I have seen.

The Availabot stands upright when a specific buddy on your IM list is available. Once your buddy logs off of IM or becomes unavailable, the little statue falls over. USB power means no external power adapter. The device is only available for Mac users currently running iChat on Mac OS X 10.4.

The makers hope to bring it to Windows users in the future. The device is also being positioned as a bit of a unique business card where you pre-load your IM information into the puppet and give them out to contacts. The only catch with this is the vast majority of contacts won't be running Mac.

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