DailyDirt: Talking To Animals

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Unfortunately, there are no dog collars like the ones in Up that can translate what dogs are saying into perfect English. But the technology to create an animal translator could actually be on the way. Considering how well machines can translate between two different human languages, though, the goal of conversational translation seems a tad lofty. Here are just a few quick links on animal communication projects.

• A prototype device for two-way communication with dolphins is going to try to talk with wild dolphins near the Florida coastline. This project is also trying to co-develop a language with dolphins, instead of trying to force a human-made language upon our flippered friends. [url]
• Pet parrots released into the wild are apparently teaching other birds how to say some human expressions. And just like high school kids learning a foreign language, these birds have picked up a lot of swear words. [url]
• Chimps that were taught sign language have been observed teaching sign language to their young. Monkey see. Monkey do! [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: animals, birds, chimps, dolphins, language, monkeys, parrots, talking, translator, washoe

DailyDirt: Baby Language Development

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Devices that can automatically interpret dogs and babies have been promising easy conversations with our loved ones who aren't quite able to speak intelligibly. (There are even apps for it.) The reality, though, isn't quite like the talking dogs in the movie Up. But maybe some day, if folks keep working on the technology for it.... Here are some projects that might help out.

• MIT scientist, Deb Roy, has recorded thousands of hours of audio and video of his son's life, in order to analyze it and learn how babies develop cognitive skills like language. And based on this experiment, Roy is taking time off to develop similar video/audio analytics software that can track commercial TV shows and social media interactions..? [url]
• Priscilla Dunstan claims to have discovered the five universal words that all babies know how to say. In practice, though, trying to decode these sounds is probably pretty close to a game of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock. [url]
• Studying babies by putting their little heads in fMRI machines sounds like an awesome research project. And maybe fMRI scans will quantify whether or not there really are five universal baby words. [url]
• There's an app for translating baby cries -- offering translations for the "five" different types of baby cries: hungry, sleepy, annoyed, stressed or bored. The source code is probably just a pseudo-random number generator.... [url]
• To discover more interesting baby-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: baby language, fmri, translator