Consider an app or device that allows dogs to phone their owners for a talk whenever they feel the urge. Scientists have created a baseball dubbed DogPhone that will let bored Beagles or yappy Yorkies communicate with one another.
Inventors in Scotland and Finland hope to pioneer the dog internet, which they believe will be a lifeline for lonely dogs and “pandemic puppies” left at home all day. Inventor Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas says, “No one’s really done this sort of stuff before. Where do we even begin making things from a dog viewpoint?”Â
When the pet shakes a ball, it initiates a video call to the owner’s phone. Hirskyj-Douglas put the device through its paces on her 10-year-old Labrador, Zack. ”Over the past decade, many systems have been developed. Especially for humans to remotely connect to their pets at home,” said Hirskyj-Douglas. She points out, ”little attention has been paid to how animals can control such systems. As well as what the implications are of animals using internet systems.”
”When the accelerometer senses movement, it initiates a video call on a laptop in their living room allowing Zack to see and interact with his owner whenever he chooses. Zack’s owner can also use the system to call him, and he is free to answer or ignore the call,” she adds.
