Dog translator understands your dog’s bark
Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if your dog could speak to you? Well, Japanese toy manufacturer Takara Tomy announced this week it would launch a new version of the Bowlingual (like what they did there?) gadget that would ‘talk’ and translate a dog’s bark into human words.
This new gadget will analyse six emotions, such as frustration, sadness and joy and turn them into sentences such as ‘Play with me!’
The original version only showed the translation on a small screen and won the Ig Nobel Prize seven years ago in 2002. The Ig Nobel Prize is designed to celebrate those that make us think or laugh. The first version had a little microphone attached to the dog collar, presumably so we wouldn’t accidentally interpret the dog next door or another dog in the park, linked to a handset that the owner held.
A Tomy spokesperson, Chie Yamada, said:
“Dog owners can enjoy the toy at a dog run and a park.”
The new model, called the Bowlingual Voice, will be on sale in Japan, in Japanese only for the time being, from August with an RRP of 19,950 yen (US $212). The original version is still available in Korean and English.
I don’t know how accurate this new gadget is, but are we sure we’re ready to hear what our dogs are really saying?
