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| Now it's mobile phones for dogs | |
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mind-boggling. The US pet market is worth $31 billion a year,
enough to repay the entire foreign debt of Nigeria, Africa's most populous
country. Bow-Lingual is a two-part gadget - a sender which is attached to the dog's neck and a receiver that is held by the dog's owner. Developed by Japan's Takara toy company with help from acoustic engineers and animal behaviourists, it analyzes a dog's barks to assess mood and meaning. Barks are divided into six mood categories: happy, sad, on guard, frustrated, assertive and needy. Meaning comes in any one of 200 programmed "translation phrases." Standing up to 30ft away, the dog's owner looks at the receiver screen and sees messages such as "I'm bored," "I'm lonesome" or "I'm excited." Bow-Lingual also has body language and "home alone" modes. Home alone records barks and feelings for up to 12 hours. Does it work? Psychologist Stanley Coren, author of "How to Speak |
 Dog,"
says Bow-Lingual
contains "a little bit of science
and lot of great marketing." The
sender-receiver version of Bow-Lingual sells for about $100-$120 and can be
bought on the Web worldwide. The mobile phone version is much cheaper, since all that is required is the $36 insert card. At present this works only in Japan with Vodafone's new $200 V601SH handset, which comes with onboard digital photography and video. To get your dog on the video phone you have to stand close - 40 cms - and get him to bark. He will then, says Vodafone, produce "emotions that are displayed in colorful text and illustrations on the handset." Footnote: With six million pet dogs in Japan, Bow-Lingual has produced an estimated $30 million of of trade for Japan's pet stores. The US has 60 million pet dogs . . . |
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