Japanese toymaker Takara Tomy says it will launch a talking version of its Bowlingual gadget that can “translate” dog barks into the human language.
The new model analyses 6 emotions, including joy, sadness and frustration, and speaks phrases such as “Play with me!” — an improvement on the original which just showed them on a screen.
“Dog owners can enjoy the toy at a dog run and a park,” said Tomy spokeswoman Chie Yamada.
The original version of the toy, which has a handset and a microphone attached to a dog collar, won the Ig Nobel Prize in 2002.
So reports Agence France Press in the July 16, 2009 issue of The Sowetan. Further details are reported in Computerworld.
The 2002 Ig Nobel Peace Prize citation reads: “Keita Sato, President of Takara Co., Dr. Matsumi Suzuki, President of Japan Acoustic Lab, and Dr. Norio Kogure, Executive Director, Kogure Veterinary Hospital, for promoting peace and harmony between the species by inventing Bow-Lingual, a computer-based automatic dog-to-human language translation device.” Masahiko Kajita, one of the team leaders who developed Bowlingual, is on the cover of the Annals of Improbable Research special issue about the 2002 Ig Nobel ceremony:
