Yes! Dog Bark Translators!!!

News Article

[image=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20030828/dogtalk27_bowlingual.jpg]

My dog Crema has always been articulate. No, really, she has.

Over the past eight years, this 15-pound part-Chihuahua part-dachshund and I have learned to communicate pretty well.

Or so I thought.

The Bow-Lingual has a wireless microphone that attaches to the dog's collar, and a hand-held unit.

When a fire-hydrant-red techno-toy called Bow-Lingual arrived in our office, my editor figured Crema and I would be the perfect candidates to test it: I think I know what my dog is telling me; Bow-Lingual thinks it knows, too.

Bow-Lingual, you see, is a canine translator device. It uses sound-pattern analysis to interpret what a dog is "emoting" each time it barks.

A hit in Japan since its introduction last November, the gadget this month became available in the United States, where it retails for $120 (although we've seen it priced lower online).

In exchange for this not-insignificant piece of change, you receive a hard plastic-encased wireless microphone, a piece of stylish black neoprene to attach the mike to your dog's collar, a hand-held remote translator with LED screen, four AAA batteries and minimal instructions.

The U.S. version of Bow-Lingual comes in two colors -- red and blue -- each tuned to a different frequency. This detail isn't important unless you have two dogs and want to tune into both. That's right: Two dogs means two separate units. Ka-ching!

You should also know these doggy doodads eat AAA batteries almost as fast as my late miniature pinscher Tina -- bless her soul -- inhaled her diet kibble.



But I digress.

Back to Crema and what my housemate calls the "expensive canine (Magic) 8-Ball."

I hooked the red mike unit to Crema's daisy-embroidered collar. I turned on the mike and a little red light glowed from under her chin.

Then, I turned my attention to the hand-held unit. Before Bow-Lingual outputs your dog's feelings, you must input some basic 411, including the time and date, your dog's breed (the American version includes 80) and its name. Not a purebred? No worries. Mutts can play, too. For Crema, I was asked to indicate her size (small) and type of snout (long).

Bow-Lingual matches the dog's barks against a database of digital "voiceprints" created from thousands of bark samples, plus interpretations gathered from dog owners.

It has several key features:


Bark Translation records and translates your dog's barks. Unfortunately, it misses a lot of them. Sometimes it kicks in slowly, picking up the third in a series of barks. Sometimes it doesn't register barks at all.

Another annoyance is the lack of a temporary "sleep" mode during Bark Translation. If your dog is quiet for too long (a seemingly unquantified amount of time), the Bow-Lingual unit shuts itself down. If Fido barks again, you have to manually power the receiver back on, but by then that particular bark is long gone.


Home Alone mode offers a timer you can set for up to 12 hours to capture bark translations while you're away. It's also a more reliable way to capture any barks at all.

Of course, if your batteries give out during this time, which they're likely to do, all recording stops. It would be helpful if the next generation of Bow-Linguals offered a way to proactively assess how much juice you have left in the way that most personal digital assistants do.


Data Analysis interprets your dog's bark data.

Bark History stores the last 100 barks, annotated with date and time, but for some reason (er, dying batteries?) my unit stopped storing at 71. Alas, there's no way to delete individual barks, like the ones you or your human friends might make to see how well you "speak dog."

The Man's Best Friend (MBF) Score is a silly running indicator of your dog's "happiness." Crema's MBF hovers in the mid-40s on a scale of 1 to 100. I guess she's sort of happy.


Go ahead, make my day!

 

Does it make a digital note when the dog gets annoyed with the thing and tears it off?

 

AssDroid: I dunno, maybe. It probably just quits functioning.

... or the batteries die, like the person writing the article seemed to get rather frustrated with.

 

Did anyone see that story in the New Yorker not so long ago about the home naturalist who translated his dogs' barks at the mailman?

 

Sounds I don't know funny I guess. But cool if it really works.

 

I don't think my dog would appreciate it if I put one of those things on his collar.

P-F

 

It was funnier when it was the Simpsons and it was a baby translator and it wasn't someone seriously marketing it.

Amazing.

 

Oh wow, I want one. I don't have a dob but maybe my roomate will make more sense when he's got all that pizza down his throat...

But hey, whatever. I'd buy won just to find out what the word "Woof" means.

 

*ruff* = Feed me.

*ruff ruff* = Walk me.

*ruf ruff howl* = I need some attention.

*ruff ruff HOWL* *ruff ruff HOWL* = We will we will rock you.

 

Repeating yourself doesn't help.

ROFL

All in all, though, it sounds like your dog is definitely a female!
"Pay attention to me!"
"I'm needy!"
etc.

 

Amazing : Yup, that Simpsons episode was a classic. The best part was when Herb translated Maggie as saying 'This leash demeans us both.'