A new gadget, called the "BowLingual" based on a Japanese item by the same name, allows a dog's bark to be placed on a scale of various emotions. Your dog can be put in to the category of happy, sad, frustrated, needy and on guard.
My Dog Can Twitter Better Than Your Dog
After your dog's bark has been analyzed, the iPhone application will determine a phrase that goes with the emotion. From there, the dog owner can tweet the pup's emotions and phrases to their friends. So, you have dogs talking back and forth. A bit scary, one might say. What would they talk about? Which cat they will take out in the neighborhood? Who did what on who's lawn?
What's next? A magazine covering all of the gossip of the stars pets? We'll have the paparazzi heading for the best dog parks in town to recover the latest "tails" of interest. We will be reading headlines such as, "Johnny Depps dog sniffed Britney Spears dog's rear end this weekend...is it true romance?"
Japan saw the release of the BowLingual device in 2002. Time honored the translator as one of the best inventions of 2002. The BowLingual runs about $5.00 US, but the original standalone device was around $100.00 when it came out in 2002.
Japanese company "Takara Toys" designed the BowLingual gadget and "Index Corporation" , a Japanese mobile software company, developed the BowLingual iPhone application itself. The application was due out this summer, for Japanese users and the English version will follow.
So, dog owners and lovers, watch out for the gossip to hit the Twitter scene! I figure doggie soap operas and romance novels are soon to follow. I guess the hard hitting reporters and freelance writers will have some job security in the future if we add the dog eat dog world of gossip to our own. Ah, we do love our dirty laundry.
Speaking of Dirty Laundry; a Washing Machine and Toilet That Tweets?
A dog tweet is one thing, but when my toilet begins tweeting me while I'm working? I'm done. I have "flushed" the idea of tweeting out of my system. Yes, excuse the pun.
When Seth Hardy, an anti virus company researcher, got tired of tweets and the "Twitter-pated" world, he thought it would be fun to hook his toilet up to a twitter account. His toilet, yes you read it right, his toilet has at leat 580 followers.
"It started as a joke. I don't like Twitter much and think everyone puts up very mundane stuff, so I thought, why not have my toilet in there too?"
Well, Seth, you've made some dreams come true for your toilet and its followers. I'm sure the number of groupies will grow as time goes on. Are we truly that bored in our lives that we must check in on how many times a day our toilet flushes, or what it has to say about that certain flush? Please tell me it doesn't report what was in the toilet that it had to swallow. I think that's plunging in a bit too far.
So, want more dirty laundry? Dog and toilet emotions aren't enough? Well, how about adding a washing machine to the mix? The Pimpy3wash is a washing machine that tweets about its latest "dirty deed". The main problem I used to have with my washing machine is whether or not it would go in to the spin cycle. Are we training new people to not only repair the washing machine, but to analyze its daily emotional problems too? I guess I'm in the wrong business. I should have listened to the high school counselor when she told me I could become a washing machine analyst. I didn't know she meant it literally.
I remember when we used to think the telephone was the "bomb". Then came the invention of the cell phone. Even though it was built as big as a car size battery back then, it was new, different, and wow, what a marvel! We could now talk to each other when we weren't in the home! We could actually have an emergency phone if we needed one while driving down the road. It was heaven. Now, it seems we live our lives by these phones. Tweeting, Facebook, and all the glory that goes with the new inventions that are our world.
When I first walk in to my bathroom early in the morning and want to use the toilet, I'm half awake and can barely find the toilet for the most part. If it speaks back to me too? It will find itself out on the back lawn, along with the three dogs and their twit attitudes.
