Connect with us

Published

on

A University of Glasgow researcher has made a device that will enable pet dogs to communicate with their owners over long distances. Dr. Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, a specialist in animal-computer interaction at the university’s School of Computing Science, has been building devices for her 10-year-old Labrador for a while now. Her focus is on building devices that “give dogs choices or options to do things for enrichment reasons.” DogPhone is a device that Hirskyj-Douglas developed in collaboration with colleagues from Aalto University in Finland. The device allows a dog to video-call their owner.

Hirskyj-Douglas says in a video posted by the university 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 current pet market showcases a lot of technologies that allows a human to video-call their dogs. “But really your dog has no control over this,” she said.

DogPhone looks like a ball which is fitted with an accelerometer. When a dog picks it up and shakes it, the accelerometer senses the movement and initiates a video call on a laptop set up in the house. This allows the dog to see and interact with its owner whenever it wants to. The owner can also make the call on the device and the dog can choose to answer or ignore it.

Hirskyj-Douglas said 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 quite exciting for her initially, she admits she was anxious when she did not receive a call from him. However, she thought that her dog experienced it in a different way. He was confused at the beginning but was “perfectly fine with it” after a while.

Hirskyj-Douglas said, “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.”


For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on Twitter, Facebook, and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Hawkeye Release Date and Time, Cast, Episodes, Trailer, Review, and More

Redmi K50 Gaming Series Reportedly in the Works, Tipped to Debut in April 2022

Continue Reading

Science

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Captures Lobster Nebula’s Towering Spires and Massive Stars

Published

on

By

NASA’s Webb Telescope imaged the Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357), 5,500 light-years away. Its young star cluster, Pismis 24, contains giant stars carving glowing gas pillars. Pismis 24-1, once thought to be one supermassive star, is a triple system with stars up to 74 times the Sun’s mass.

Continue Reading

Science

Could a Planet Exist Without a Host Star? Astronomers Say Rogue Worlds May Roam Freely

Published

on

By

Astronomers have discovered that planets can survive without stars, drifting as rogue or hypervelocity worlds. Some are flung into space by black holes, while others are displaced by gas giants. On some of these rogue worlds, the idea goes, there might be oceans beneath icy crusts, where life, at least life at a microbe level, could exist.

Continue Reading

Science

Exoplanets Explained: How Astronomers Find Worlds Orbiting Stars Beyond the Sun

Published

on

By

Exoplanets are planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, hidden by stellar glare and detected indirectly. Astronomers identify them by tracking star wobbles or dips in brightness during planetary transits. NASA’s Kepler mission revealed thousands, with TESS now expanding the search. These discoveries confirm that planetary systems are abundant throughout the …

Continue Reading

Trending