A University of Glasgow researcher has made a tool that can allow pet canines to speak with their house owners over lengthy distances. Dr. Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, a specialist in animal-computer interplay on the college’s School of Computing Science, has been constructing gadgets for her 10-year-old Labrador for some time now. Her focus is on constructing gadgets that “give dogs choices or options to do things for enrichment reasons.” DogPhone is a tool that Hirskyj-Douglas developed in collaboration with colleagues from Aalto University in Finland. The machine permits a canine to video-call their proprietor.
Hirskyj-Douglas says in a video posted by the college itself, “Dogs have been trained to answer calls but no one really knows what a dog would do if they had control over a video call. This device was really designed to just flip it and to see what a dog would do if they had control over the video and over the internet themselves.”
She added that the present pet market showcases a number of applied sciences that enables a human to video-call their canines. “But really your dog has no control over this,” she stated.
DogPhone seems to be like a ball which is fitted with an accelerometer. When a canine picks it up and shakes it, the accelerometer senses the motion and initiates a video name on a laptop computer arrange in the home. This permits the canine to see and work together with its proprietor each time it desires to. The proprietor also can make the decision on the machine and the canine can select to reply or ignore it.
Hirskyj-Douglas stated this on testing the DogPhone on her pet: “We used this over several weeks and I gave it to him whenever he was left home alone for a long period.”
While it was fairly thrilling for her initially, she admits she was anxious when she didn’t obtain a name from him. However, she thought that her canine skilled it differently. He was confused at the start however was “perfectly fine with it” after some time.
Hirskyj-Douglas stated, “I think, from this experiment what is really demonstrated to me is that we can really form technology very differently for animals. Animals can be active users of technology. They can control technology. We just need to really reshape our thinking about how we see the future of dog technology.”
The paper says that it “explores the creation of a video call device to allow a dog to remotely call their human, giving the animal control and agency over technology in their home.”
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