Development
Introduction to the Karotz Lab
Feb 10th
Hello!
This post is dedicated to all those who are interested in the Karotz Lab.
Many of you already subscribed, and we did not answer them yet, what an ignominy! This is why we would like to explain here how things will happen.
As soon as Karotz will be available, we will open the Karotz Lab and distribute the programmers’ accounts.
Here you can see two pictures of the section in the web, that is dedicated to the programmers, and where you will also find the technical documentation about how to develop your own applications.
As a programmer you have access to 2 methods, which are running quite well at the moment:
- The SDK allows us to develop all integrated applications (e.g. weather forecast, RSS, radio, back 2 home).
- The API allows to use web services to control the rabbit (e.g. the Karotz Controller).
As you can imagine, there are some rules. When you develop an application, you must indicate which function of the rabbit you are using. For example, when you don’t specify that you are using the webcam, you won’t be able to take photos with your rabbit.
There are also some conditions for the code. For example you can integrate speech recognition into your application. This speech recognition must be coded according to a given nomenclature.
On the other side many of you asked, if the applications that are developed for Karotz also will work on Nabaztag. The answer is No. Both systems are basically different, and for the moment not compatible.
At the end a word to ethics. We would like to avoid to affront the public sensibility. But as long as an application is not really shocking, we won’t react unless we receive a complaint.
Concerning this topic you can also read following articles on this blog:
How to make an application in 5 minutes
How to start applications
100% web applications
Karotz’ software architecture
A V8 under the hood
Cheers!
The weekly video: Karotz Controller (application for smartphone)
Jan 26th
Hello everybody!
Today we would like to present you the application „Karotz Controller“ for smartphones and pads. This is a beta version, so please don’t be too severe! And as always the video is in French.
With this application you can change the colour of the LED, move the ears, send text messages, listen to the radio or to your music files, and take photos from what Karotz can see.
0’’ – 0’30 Arnaud says hello to everybody, and present the topic of this video: It is about the Karotz Controller. The Karotz Controller is a small program, that you can install on your iPads or Android phones. Later it will also be available for Symbian and Windows 7. With this program you can control the functions of Karotz, for example photo editing, music or TTS (Text-to-Speech).
0’31 – 1’19 Arnaud makes a demonstration of the topic Photo Editing: He opens the application on his iPad and controls, if he is connected with the rabbit. The LED is white, which means that the connection is already established. Then he starts the application. Now Karotz takes a photo every second, until the process is stopped by the user. So you can see, what happens at your home. In this version 1.0 of the Karotz Controller the photos cannot yet be saved, but this should be possible in the next version.
1’20 – 2’04 The second demonstration in about the topic Multimedia. Before you could read media from an USB stick using the MPD (Music Player Daemon). From now on this program is directly integrated into the Karotz Controller. Now you can launch a song, go from one song to another, or choose the random mode.
2’05 – 2’34 You can also listen to radio stations. In this example Arnaud is listening to radio France Inter. The Karotz Controller includes about 20 radio stations, and this list will be enriched. The Karotz Controller will also be able to integrate web radios, that you set up for Karotz.
2’35 – 3’04 For all those, who do not want to leave their iPad running, we also have a solution: When the iPad is in stand-by modus, there are still about 20 minutes available, so that you can continue listening to songs or to radios.
3’05 – 3’44 The third functionality is the TTS. Arnaud is writing a short text message on his iPad, and Karotz transforms his message into a artificial voice. So you can send messages to your friends, with your iPad or your smartphone.
3’45 – 4’09 You also can telecommand the ears or change the colour of the LED.
4’10 – 4’14 And finally Arnaud invites you to ask all your questions to this video on the blog.
The Nabaztags move to Karotz’ servers
Jan 24th
Hello everybody!
This post is for all owners of Nabaztags. As you may already know, the old servers are not working very well. Into the bargain a new bug concerning the informations appeared. In the moment we are about to repair it, by creating free space on the hard drive.
I would now like to explain some details about the planning of your rabbit and his servers. Two things will happen:
1) The server will be renewed. This is the most complicate step, and it is longer as we thought. It is not enough only to reboot the servers. Every day we try new procedures, but we concentrate more on Karotz and his servers, in order to be able to let Nabaztag benefit from the new servers as soon as possible.
2) For that the Nabaztag will be able to benefit from the new Karotz’ servers, we will proceed with a relocation. This update will be done in March or April, as soon as the Karotz’ servers will be started. In the moment we cannot tell you more about, because we did not yet install the new servers for Karotz.
The host of our servers told us some months ago, that he would wish us to change their place. We asked him to be patient, at least until the release of Karotz, and until the Nabaztags have been moved to the new servers, because this procedure could cause even more problems, that will be very difficult to resolve.
As conclusion one can say, that we are working to maintain the Nabaztags and to make them work better. The move to the new servers, which will take place in the next weeks, will proceed without any problems. I know that this post is not satisfying. So I only want to beg you to believe me, that we are really concerned about the solution of these problems.
Sorry for these inconvenients and thank you for your patience!
You can also read following posts on Karotz’ blog:
The project Alice
Jan 4th
Hello everybody!
As you already may know, Karotz is much more powerful than Nabaztag. His embedded system gives him much more functionalities.
With regard to the development of applications, we applied to attend the ministry of industry with a project for research and development, and we have been accepted! The project is called Alice, and it will be realized together with our partners L&J Solutions and Digital Airways.
It is about developing systems, that can be used without any physical contact (RFID, NFC, etc.), and that are mixing 3 worlds:
1) The Karotz platform (to render contents) ;
2) The smartphones (with Karotz’ avatar as interface) ;
3) The cloud (with a platform that renders scenarios, and that has the ability to move through content, depending on the situation).
You do not seem much more clever now concerning this project. Generally speaking, it is about connecting these 3 worlds, that don’t have nothing in common. And we already found various solutions. In some weeks we will open a forum, where you will be able to follow the development, and above all, where you are invited to leave your comments and questions. We believe that your questions will be very useful for us.
See you soon on the forum of Alice! 
The weekly video: a mini-game Karotz sings Daft Punk for the holidays!
Dec 23rd
Good evening!
Today I am with Nabil, and we would like to present you a mini-game application, that we developped for the song of Daft Punk „Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger“!
Please be patient, because the introduction of the song is a little bit long.
Tomorrow the Karotz team celebrates Christmas. Karotz is also invited with our families, for that he does not feel too lonely. We come back on monday, and in the meantime we wish you all a Merry Christmas!
Introduction to the development of applications for Karotz – How to make an application in 5 minutes?
Dec 21st
Today we want to explain how to develop applications for our friend Karotz. In order to simplify the work for all developpers, we provide a simple SDK. The SDK is based on the Javascript language and allows to control the rabbit.
In this post I will only speak about embedded applications and the SDK. I will talk about the web API another time.
An application for Karotz is a simple ZIP archive, containing:
- 1) a descriptor
- 2) and its Javascript code
1) The descriptor is a XML file that appears as following:
- name indicates the application’s name.
- apikey is a unique public key given to each new application.
- version is the application’s version. If the application is modified, it will be actualised on the Karotz on which it is installed.
- accesses concerns the security policy of Karotz. It specifies which modules are allowed and which modules are forbidden. In our case, this application can interact with the RFID reader, the ears, the voice synthesis (TTS), the LED, the speech recognition (ASR), the multimedia player, the button, and can connect to the Internet.
- deployment defines if the application is embedded (hosted) or remote (external).
- interruptible permits to specify if the application can be interrupted by a sedond application (or not at all).
- awake autorises or not the application to wake up the rabbit.
- multiConf activates or not the various instances of the applications.
2) Now let’s talk about the Javascript code. The file ‚main.js’ must be present at the root of the archive. You can add as many Javasript files to the archive as you like.
A „helloworld“ application appears as following:
Once the application is downloaded on Karotz, it will be executed on the rabbit, with the help of the virtual machine.
The rabbit (precisely the controller) has 3 connexion types:
- The plateform can control the rabbit with the help of the web API.
- The embedded KarotzVM allows to execute embedded applications.
- The remote KarotzVM allows the developpers to execute applications from a computer that is connected to the same network as the rabbit.
In other words, the developpers will be able to program their applications quickly on their computer, and then test them directly on their rabbit.
The developer has to specify the local IP adress of his rabbit in the file ‚main.js’, and the virtual machine on the distant computer will control Karotz.
It is impossible to make things easier. Here you can see an example on Linux. You only need to type the folder’s name, once the virtual machine is launched.
./KarotzVM helloworld
At this moment the KarotzVM is working on Linux and Mac, but soon it will also work on Windows. I mean… if we find one.
And here you can also see the weekly video (in french), that shows everything that I said in this post, and that explains how to develop an application in 5 mintues.
Next week we will show you how to build a nuclear reactor with a Karotz!
The weekly video: the alert @Home
Dec 10th
Hello everbody!
Today we present the 3rd video of the Dev Diary. In this video we show you an application that will please all parents. You can receive e-mails and SMS that alert you when your child has come home from school.
We wish you a pleasant film and a nice week-end.
_____________________
0’’ – 0’42: Arnaud presents an application for all parents who have a Karotz. How can Karotz help to watch your children, and how the children could easily communicate with their parents, without using a telephone.
0’42 – 1’: For example, my daughter comes home from school, she shows a RFID accessory (a Nanoztag or a Flatnanoz) to Karotz. Karotz then sends a SMS or an e-mail to the mobile phone of the parent.
1’ – 1’12: The telephone beeps and a SMS arrived: “I am at home.”
1’12 – 1’40: In this presentation he works with an iPhone (or another mobile phone). But you will be also able to choose between receiving an e-mail or a SMS.
1’40 – 2’07: The next video will be presented by another person from the development. This person is already looking forward talking to you! Arnaud will be in China to supervise the fabrication of the rabbits.
The music on Karotz
Dec 7th
Hello everybody!
The last video generated some question that I would like to answer here.
1) Is the MDP also available on other systems except Android Mobiles or iOS?
The answer is “yes”. The MPD is available on many systems, even on Symbian. MPD is like a “music server”, and can be controled with any system.
2) How to start the mediaplayer?
The Karotz Player starts automatically, when the MPD connects to Karotz. You don’t need to leave your couch.
3) Is it possible to send music to another Karotz?
No, this is not possible with the MPD.
4) Will the Nabcasts come back?
Yes, the Nabcasts will come back, but we will talk about this in january.
5) Can Karotz also read hard drives?
No, in the moment Karotz can only ready from USB sticks. Because it does not bear more than 500 mA. But Karotz can read from mass storage devices, like mobile phones for example, that do not need more than 500 mA.
I hope these explanations were helpful!
The Nabaztags’ virtualization
Nov 29th
As I explained on Monday, soon all Nabaztags will be virtualised, for that they can continue to work on our new servers.
What does this mean?
Every time, when your Nabaztag connects to the Internet, our server creates a virtual Karotz. And every time, when your Nabaztags disconnects from the Internet, the virtual Karotz is deleted.
What use?
1) The virtual Karotz simulate a Karotz, (maybe you did guess), that is connected to a Nabaztag. When the Nabaztag connects to the Internet, the virtual Karotz is created. Therefore the configuration of the Nabaztag’s applications are all the same.
2) Access to Karotz’ functionalities. At the moment some of the Nabaztag’s functionalities have disappeared. (And I will always be very sorry for this.) Karotz will absorb some of the Nabaztag’s functionalities (for example the famous Nabcast, which many of you regret).
3) Access to Karotz’ development tools, that help you to create applications for your Nabaztag on you own. We know, that there are many motivated people among you, and if we can help, we would appreciate to do this. (There will even be a experimental laboratory, but shush! We will talk about this later.)
What does it mean for users?
1) You have to create a new user account on www.karotz.com.
2) You have to adjust again your applications. (I wished it would not be necessary, but new accounts mean new adjustments.)
3) All these changes are quite profound. In a night in march we will deliver the Nabaztag from their old servers from Violet, and shift to our new servers.
It will be quite a huge work, but if we want to live with our Nabaztags any longer, we need to get through. As all innovations, I cannot be sure right now, that everything will be working without incident, but we will do our best!
Talk to you soon!
The weekly video: Karotz Phone
Nov 29th
Hello!
As promised, please find here the first video (in french) of our development team.
And some hints before watching it (this must be).
1) Please don’t be too severe (I am not an actor).
2/ This video will certainly raise a lot of questions. We will answer all these questions next week.
3) Please don’t be too severe (I know, I already said this, but I only wanted to be sure that you don’t forget )
See you soon!
00’’ – 45’’: Here you can see Arnaud in the studio where Karotz is developped.
45’’ – 55’’: Arnaud presents Pierre, who is in charge of the application Karotz to Karotz.
55’’ – 1’37: They do a demonstration how to speak with Karotz. At this stage of development it is still the PC that calls Karotz.
1’37 – 2’15: Arnaud calls Karotz with his iPhone.
2’16 – 2’46: Arnaud explains that it will be possible to call directly from Karotz to Karotz, and also from any smartphone from all over the world. And he also announces that next week they will present a new functionality, that nobobdy knows yet!
