Cats like to drink from everywhere but the places they're supposed to drink from, and for that they offer no excuses, reasons, and just walk away, tails in the air. This independent spirit, though, means that we're often stuck turning faucets on and off for thirsty felines because heaven forbid they drink from a dish. One crafty soul has solved this gripping conundrum with an IR detector, valves, some plastic tubing, and a whole lot of moxie. The detector can even suss out if the subject is human or feline in order to keep the faucet from triggering every time someone walks by. Our test subjects won't comment on the new tech, but they've stopped complaining and have become extremely athletic and hydrated super-cats of doom. Still reading? Peep the video after the break of hot kitty drinking action.

[Via Make]

If you're looking for a way to get your pups eating what you want, when you want, you might want to check into one DIY'ers clever solution for an RFID feeding scheme. The trouble all began when a gentleman named Mike Larsen needed to feed one of his dogs a special diet even though food had to be out constantly for his canines -- thus making that goal quite difficult to achieve. After discovering no commercial products to suit his needs (likely due to an apparent patent-hoarder), he decided to put his own solution together, using some RFID key fobs, a small proximity card access kit, a Radio Shack AC adapter, some loud buzzers... and a little bit of elbow grease. The system works by essentially "scaring" the special-diet-dog away from the food by the use of a loud buzzing sound, which isn't subtle, but certainly effective. Check the video after the break to see the system in action.

[Via Make]

Joining an already crowded field of products designed to prey on pet owners' love for their animals, a new GPS-equipped dog collar from Sweden's Petlink Development and M-Tech promises to give you Rover's exact coordinates by simpling texting the service over Telia's network. The self-titled Petlink device works much like the GPS PRO we saw a few years back, allowing Swedes and eventually Danes to pay around twelve bucks a month for the privilege of nailing down a lost pet's location on the off chance that they successfully escape from captivity their happy homes. Unfortunately Petlink -- like most other models in this category -- is a little too bulky for use on animals of the feline persuasion, so if you're a cat owner, this may be just the impetus you need to trade up to a nice Lab or pit bull.

[Via Techdirt]

Let's face it, being a pet in the modern era is pretty tough -- our furry friends live under constant surveillance and face crippling self-esteem issues brought on by a society hell-bent on upgrading them, and even replacing them outright with videogames and robots. Adding to the list of products designed to relieve Fluffy from these terrible burdens, Japanese outfit Medical Life Care Giken claims to have invented a patch to measure the stress level of cats and dogs. Based on studies linking sweat production to stress, the pin-sized patch goes on your pet's paw and changes color based on how much sweat it detects, allowing you to schedule doggie-therapy sessions accordingly. While we're not certain why it took a multi-year partnership with researchers at Toyama University to develop a sweat-powered animal mood ring, we only hope that Giken is hard at work on the fish and turtle versions of this patch -- it's been looking mighty tense in that tank.

[Via MedLaunches]

After a solid four-mile run on the Doggy Treadmill, it's not too tough to understand why Fido is famished, but for folks who are disabled in ways that make bending down or moving around in general difficult, getting the pet food from the pantry to the bowl has been a serious chore. Thanks to a retired engineer (who was stricken by cerebral palsy) that figured he better solve his own problem rather than wait for someone else, the DinnerUp apparatus was concocted, and now it's on the brink of commercialization. The device mounts onto a kitchen counter or door and relies on a hand crank / clutching system in order to lift the attached bowls to a level that's easy to reach, after which it's lowered back down to the anxious pets below. Currently, Ray Dinham is assembling the units himself and offloading them to "satisfied customers" for £70 ($140) apiece, but it shouldn't be long before the manufacturing is "outsourced to a UK-based firm" and these gain some serious worldwide traction.

[Via BBC]

Sometimes all we can do is tell you about a product and leave it as is. In this case, Yamasa Tokei delivers the canine accessory for which all jogging dog owners have been pining -- the Doggy Pedometer. Tripling as a dog tag, timer, and pedometer, this little gadget has several uses outside of the obvious. Say Scrapps runs away and you want to know how far he went. Or you don't have a pedometer yourself and go jogging with the dog all the time. Or you're a concerned pet owner and want to make sure Scrapps is exercising and running about in the back yard when you're away. Maybe you're a jealous spouse and want to see if your husband is running farther than he says. Perhaps you're an architect and you want to use Scrapper-do to measure long distances. Stop us now.

Traditional playtime between humans and their pets has generally been limited to fetch, tug-of-war, and the occasional chase around the coffee table before bedtime. Well if researchers from the Emerging Art and Architecture Research Group, or RASTER, and Singapore's Mixed Reality Lab have anything to say about it, pet owners will soon be able to kick those old fashioned games to the curb in favor of video games that let their animals get in on the action. The group is in the midst of designing a game called "Mice Arena", wherein the human player is pursued by an on-screen avatar controlled by a real world hamster, which chases a piece of motorized bait corresponding to the human's position on the in-game map. What's more, the hamster's game space -- a specially designed tank -- actually adjusts its terrain to match the on-screen action through a series of actuators underneath the floor. Future games from the collaborative -- and we'll leave the jokes to you on this one -- will incorporate decidedly less pet-like animals in the fun, with tentative titles such as (we're not making this up): "Chicken Petman"  and "Jellyfishtrone."

We may have lost the QRIO and the AIBO last week, but when one gadget company shuts a door, another opens a window: Nintendo announced the DS Lite, a smaller, um, lighter version of the DS. Microsoft also announced CableCARD 2.0 support for Vista (for a price, anyway), and one of their own, Ford Davidson, took a few to sit down with us and discuss Windows Mobile in the marketplace. And, of course, our usual dose of next-gen optical discussions continues, with a pinch of listener voicemail and a touch of gadgety democracy thrown in for good measure.

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Hosts
Peter Rojas and Ryan Block

Producer
Randall Bennett

Music
J J J - ‘Suits’ in Japan

Format
1:10:20, 32.1MB, MP3

Program
01:17 - Nintendo announces DS Lite
05:39 - Sony killed AIBO and QRIO
10:38 - Study finds robot pets as good as live ones
14:02 - Netflix to support HD DVD and Blu-ray
16:28 - Samsung SH-B022 Blu-ray burner reviewed
18:27 - Culprit uncovered in Core Duo battery drain: Microsoft driver
21:44 - CableCARD on Vista to require CableLabs certification
26:00 - TiVo undelete forthcoming!
28:31 - Interview with Ford Davidson of Microsoft's Mobile division
52:01 - Listener voicemail!
48:19 - Engadget Awards ending soon, and we're up for two Bloggies!

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