Aldebaran Robotics, the specialist in robotics which has already marketed more than 2000 NAO humanoid robots in four corners of the planet in the most prestigious universities and laboratories, now opens a consumer department and is marketing through the brand Violet, Karotz, a multipurpose companion connected to the internet.

Aldebaran Robotics, the specialist in robotics which has already marketed more than 2000 NAO humanoid robots in four corners of the planet in the most prestigious universities and laboratories, now opens a consumer department and is marketing through the brand Violet, Karotz, a multipurpose companion connected to the internet.

In October 2011, Aldebaran Robotics took over the company Violet, the creator of the famous

Nabaztag, the internet-connected rabbit. By acquiring such an icon of the 'Internet of Objects', Aldebaran, the specialist in humanoid robots begins their first consumer targeted operations. With Karotz, the third generation of internet-connected rabbits, the Aldebaran Robotics group intends to democratize the ability to live with a machine and to share a large part of their world vision in which the robot is integrated into the home.

Fabien Bardinet, CEO of Violet, subsidiary of Aldebaran: "With Aldebaran, we share the ineluctable vision that robots can be integrated into daily life. However, to live and interact with a machine is not passive. With Karotz, users have the possibility to experiment immediately with the robot and to establish a new rapport between man and machine. Our goal is to enrich this new relationship, through the balance between interactions and applications, which have to either be entertaining or useful".

The platform of services which is currently available for Karotz is now going to drive a series of new developments within Violet. In terms of innovative robotics research, from now on Aldebaran will be able to benefit from the development of their new generation of communicating objects. Furthermore, Aldebaran will focus on creating new interactions between Violet's platform of services and NAO in order to establish gateways between the intelligence embedded within NAO and cloud computing.

Fabien Bardinet, deputy CEO of the Aldebaran Robotics group, now takes over the management of Violet as CEO.
High resolution images available at http://press.karotz.com/fr/imageskarotz.html
Karotz: the multipurpose companion is currently available for 129 euros (£114.99 / $129). More information is available from www.karotz.com.

About Aldebaran Robotics and NAO
Founded in 2005 by Bruno Maisonnier and with offices in France, China, Japan and the United States, ALDEBARAN Robotics designs, produces and commercializes autonomous humanoid robots with the aim of contributing to the well-being of humans. Today, over 2000 NAOs are utilized throughout the world as research and educational platforms in 40 countries. ALDEBARAN Robotics brings together more than 160 people - including 65 engineers and PhDs - that are involved in the development and production of the robot. For further information, visit www.aldebaran-robotics.com/en

About Violet and Karotz
Karotz is a multipurpose internet-connected white rabbit. He moves his ears, speaks, reads, listens, his body lights up and he even detects the presence of other objects (by sniffing them). As he is permanently connected to the internet, he is able to react, transmit, broadcast all types of content which is available on his network: news, messages, music, texts, alerts, radio etc. Born in 2005, Nabaztag has since become the first icon of smart communicating objects. Karotz was launched in 2011 and is the third generation of multipurpose rabbits. Amongst the new features, Karotz also knows how to see and can locate where its owner is situated in the world, it can also show what it sees and listen via a PC or a Smartphone.