Many pet owners aspire to talk with their animals. After all, if pets were able to talk, people could take care of them more easily and have closer emotional connections to them. So a number of companies are working on devices and apps that could decipher what animals have to say.
One such app is called MeowTalk. Using voice recognition software, this app identifies different sounds a cat makes and offers English translations of them. For example, one type of sound might mean “feed me” while another could be translated “let me outside.” The app can use machine learning to assess its translations and improve at identifying one particular cat’s vocalizations. In other words, it can specialize in understanding your cat in particular. This is important because cats do not all have a shared language, but individual cats frequently use particular sounds to mean certain things.
In the future, MeowTalk could connect to a smart collar that would hear the cat meow and play the translation out loud. Perhaps if the cat is outside and needs to be let in, it could even send notifications to the owner’s phone.
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