DailyDirt: Connecting With Animals
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Technology has largely helped make our lives better. Sure, there are a few cases where technology has caused some major problems, but it's not easy putting the genie back in the bottle. Mark Zuckerberg might want to keep pushing the internet to more and more people, but there are some folks out there who want to go even further. Why limit ourselves to sharing technology with other humans? Let's give some technology to other animals. Here are just a few examples of people giving animals some technological help.- Peter Gabriel, Vint Cerf and a bunch of other folks want to create an "interspecies internet" to help animals communicate with people (as well as other animals). If you can imagine the rage some animals might exude after a few pop-up ads, you'll probably think this is a bad idea. [url]
- People have volunteered to create all kinds of prosthetic devices for injured animals -- such as an artificial fin for a dolphin, plastic legs for elephants that have stepped on landmines, and a 3D printed beak for a bald eagle. Elsewhere, a turtle injured by a lawnmower was fitted with wheels under her shell to help with her mobility, and Denver-based OrthoPets made artificial paws for the first dog to have four prosthetic limbs. [url]
- An artificial neural connection has helped to restore the function of a monkey's partially paralyzed hand. This research could help some injured people, too, and create an alternative artificial nerve system to route around damaged nerves. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: animals, artificial neural connection, communication, interspecies internet, peter gabriel, prosthetics, vint cerf
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I can just see ads for pets now...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]