Page 7 - IAV Digital Magazine #537

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
New DogPhone Lets Pets Video Call Their Owners When They Are Home Alone
By Lisa Joyner (Nee Walden)
Fetching sticks and chewing toys may soon be a thing of the past, as researchers at the University of Glasgow have created a clever ball that
allows dogs to video call their owners when they are feeling lonely.
Designed to tack- le separation anx- iety in pets, DogPhone is a soft ball fitted with an accelerometer (a device that measures move- ments and vibra- tions) which will phone owners when dogs shake it. When a move- ment is sensed, a signal is sent to a laptop which launches a video call.
Dr Ilyena Hirskyj- Douglas, a spe- cialist in animal- computer interac- tion at the univer- sity's School of
Computing Science, worked with her 10-year- old Labrador Zack to create the device.
As part of the cre- ation process, Zack was left to play with the toy for 16 days over a period of three
months. While there were some accidental calls, researchers found Zack showed Dr Ilyena his ball on the screen, sug- gesting he want- ed to play with her. Dr Ilyena responded back to Zack, talking to him and showing
him around her office.
With many people heading back to work after the pandemic, its cre- ators hope DogPhone will help address anx- iety in pets that are left alone at home.
"What I wanted to do with DogPhone was find a way to turn Zack from a 'usee' of technolo- gy, where he has no choice or con- trol over how he interacts with devices, into a 'user', where he
could make active decisions about when, where, and how he placed a call," Dr Hirskyj- Douglas told Sky News.
"There are hun- dreds of internet- connected 'smart toys' on the mar- ket that dog own- ers can buy for their pets. However, the vast majority of them are built with the needs of dog owners in mind, allowing them to observe or inter- act with their pets while away from home.
"Very few of them seem to consider what dogs them- selves might want, or how technology might benefit them as living beings with thoughts and feel- ings of their own."
Will you give it a go?
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine