This funny little USB peripheral called the Availabot is designed to work in conjunction with the instant messenger on your computer. It stands on a little marshmallow looking stand that connects via USB to your computer and gives you a physical representation of the availability of your friends on your IM application, laying flaccid when the contact is gone, and quickly standing upright when the contact is available.

The idea is pretty interesting (and funny) and the Availabots are completely customizable in the profile they store and in how they look. You can use as many of them at a time as you would like to dedicate a USB port for. The puppets currently work with iChat on Mac OS X 10.4 but the company has plans to extend them to other IM programs on the Mac and eventually Windows.

They can be custom ordered to resemble the actual person behind the IM contact and the IM information is actually stored in the Availabot, so you can get a bunch with your own likeness and IM information and give them out to your friends when the company actually decides to put them into production. You can see the Availabot in action in the short video below:

Availabot via ProductDose