Remember the push-puppets you had when you were a kid? These little puppets collapse instantly when you push the button on the base they stand, providing hours of quality entertainment to kids like myself. Now it has returned from exile and is back grouped up with new technology to provide hours of entertainment to IT people like myself.
For the original concept see:Availabot
For the cuter Linux version visit Push puppet toy
I can imagine my desk full of these puppets each representing a friend I usually talk to, these puppets would dance up and down all day depending on who's leaving for lunch.
Also it would be great to have this extended to have an intermediary stage, ie. when the button is half pushed these puppets usually start letting their head down. So when the contact is not offline, but only away they could show how said they are to be away from their computer, and when they are offline they are completely splattered.
