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New wearable device reads your pet’s mind (to remind you they’re probably annoyed at you)

Mike Jan 17, 2016
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The pet wearables venture company, Anicall, promises a new device and accompanying smartphone app that can read your pet’s emotions.

If the technology existed to read your pet’s mind, would you want to? Your dog’s whines and whimpers may seem like your animal’s adorable display of affection to you now, but who knows? Maybe it’s all dog code for, “Hey guys, check out this idiot, talking to dogs and stuff.”

Well, sure, while a real-deal doggy translator may be decades or even centuries in coming, at least one Japanese company is hoping to help owners connect on a deeper level with pets through a wearable device that purports to read your beloved animal’s emotions, if not actual thoughts.

Venture company Anicall’s somewhat clunkily-named “Shiraseru Amu,” or, in English (at least according to Gizmodo), “The Internet of Animals,” will apparently use an array of sensors built into a small harness that you strap to your dog or cat to judge your animal’s mood and intentions. According to the company’s Makuake crowdfunding page, the sensors will measure things like motion, heart rate, temperature and more to get an idea of your animal’s movement and behavior. The Shiraseru Amu will then upload the data to a cloud database, where software will apparently then make an educated guess on what your pup/kitty/cow’s (yes, cow’s) behavior means.

Here’s Anicall’s official Makuake crowdfunding video (Warning: Incredibly cheesy!)

Aside from the depressing thought of learning that your cat rubbing against your leg actually just means, “hurry up and die so I can eat your face already,” this actually sounds like a pretty cool idea! Pet and animal behavior isn’t exactly an understudied science, but a lot of what we think our pets mean when they, say, wag their tails, is really based on largely speculative results of various studies (since, you know, we can’t just ask Mr. Buttons or Spots directly). The ability to turn hundreds of thousands, even millions, of individual animals’ behaviors into large-scale data could give us tons of additional insight into, for example, just how many rotations means Sir Bigglesworth is just getting ready for bed, and how many rotations means he’s about to poop on the floor.

For now, Anicall promises the device will readily be able to analyze about 20 different pet behaviors and moods right out of the box.

“Hey bud, what say we go roll in some poop together?”

Additionally, while that appears to be the primary goal for the product, Anicall also says the various sensors aboard the Shiraseru Amu will be able to measure your pet’s temperature to avoid heat exhaustion, analyze calorie consumption and calorie burning, and peer into your animal’s secret lifestyle while you aren’t at home. Finally, we’re approaching a day in which we will know beyond the shadow of a doubt, Who’s been a bad dog?!

Source: Mainichi Shimbun (h/t Gizmodo)
Images: Anicall