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Fujitsu made a wearable that knows when a cow is in the mood
Fitness trackers for cows are nothing new, but Fujitsu's EDSC wearable has a very specific purpose. The company's Estrus Detection System for Cattle, which is being showcased at Mobile World Congress, is designed to help farmers increase the efficiency of cattle production. By counting a cow's steps, using the orange pedometer pictured above, EDSC can easily recognize when the animal is ready for insemination. According to a Fujitsu representative, cows boost their walk time by up to six times when they are sexually aroused.
Cat gets cutting-edge prosthetic legs
Say hello to Vincent the cat. Due to a congenital defect, Vincent was born without rear tibias and likely would have died had he not been rescued and surrendered to an Iowa animal shelter. Once adopted, he caught the attention of Dr. Mary Sarah Bergh, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Iowa State University's Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center. She worked with 3D printing firm Biomedtrix to create a custom pair of extruded titanium peg legs for the feline, enabling him to walk for the first time.
Smart dog collar tracks your pooch's diet and location
There are a lot of devices out there that you can use to keep track of your pets, but the Buddy collar is akin to several types rolled into one. The LED collar makes sure Fido's visible in the dark, but it's also a temperature sensor, an activity tracker, and location monitor. This waterproof device was created by Australian startup Squeaker, which is now trying to raise AU$385,000 (US$285,000) via Kickstarter to begin production. It connects via Bluetooth to an accompanying iOS (Apple Watch version included) or Android app where you can draw geofences on maps. And yes, it alerts you if ever your pet steps out of the zone you designated.
Shoot food at your pets with the Petzi Treat Cam
A cat usually doesn't love you the way a dog does. But my cats love me. No really. They greet me at the door meowing and carrying on. Well, one of them does. The other one greets me a few minutes later when it's feeding time and then when she needs a warm lap for one of her constant naps. Okay, one cat loves me; the other one uses me for food and warmth. Regardless of their feelings, the $170 Petzi Treat Cam is my opportunity to say hi to my cats while at work or traveling with the added bonus of rewarding them with food for at least acknowledging my virtual presence. If only they found it as exciting as I do.
Xiaomi's action cam bests a GoPro Hero for half the price
Xiaomi has unleashed a 399 CNY ($64) action cam onto unsuspecting cats in China, but will it join the Mi band in the US? The Yi Camera actually trumps the specs of GoPro's entry-level camera with 1080P, 60fps video and up to 64GB of memory at about half the price (the $130 Hero has 1080/30p video and 32GB max storage). It also weighs significantly less at 72g, has a bigger battery and can go the same 40m (130 feet. Update: separate case required) underwater. To be fair, unlike the Hero, it doesn't come with a housing, mounts or the impeccable rep. But Xiaomi is offering a bunch of extra accessories, including a helmet mount and, yes, a cat harness.
Smart collar turns your cat into a WiFi hacking weapon
Forget Trojan horses -- it's the cats you have to worry about. Security engineer Gene Bransfield has developed WarKitteh, a tech-laden collar that turns feline companions into scouts for WiFi hackers. The innocuous-looking accessory hides a Spark Core board that maps wireless networks and their vulnerabilities wherever the pet wanders. If used in the field, the technology would be pretty sneaky; the cat stalking mice in your backyard could represent the prelude to an attack on your wireless router.
High-tech cat feeder uses facial recognition to save all nine lives
Our four-legged friends have a habit of not eating when something ails them. However, if you're at work all day, you may not pick up on the lack of appetite until it's too late. Well, there's a smart cat feeder with built-in facial recognition that's looking to lend a hand. Bistro is a high-tech feline food and water hub with sensors that monitor consumption. There's the requisite camera to distinguish between members of your in-home pack and the furry creatures stand on a scale that measures their weight while eating. All of the collected data is beamed to a smartphone app to keep you abreast of the activity while you're away for your "quantified cat." Heck, you can even watch your pets feast, should you choose to do so. If you're looking to snag one, act quickly to nab a Bistro for $149 instead of the full $249 price it'll carry when it launches in March.
CleverPet makes every dog Pavlov's dog
Psychologist Ivan Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate by ringing a bell, but maybe he should have made them play Simon instead. That's the idea behind CleverPet, a device that plans to train your dog to solve simple problems while you're at work. When it begins, all the pooch has to do is push a button to get food, with subsequent puzzles growing in difficulty until it's playing whack-a-mole with the light-up pads. It's the second smart pet device we've seen on Kickstarter in the last few weeks, with Kittyo offering a similar piece of kit for cat owners. CleverPet is currently half-way toward its $100,000 goal, but you can save $100 off the retail price if you make an early pledge of $160. Just be warned that it won't launch until February 2015, so best make sure your dog will still be in the "young and able to be taught tricks" bracket by then.
Adorable Japanese gadget saves canines from becoming hot dogs
It's almost that time of year, y'all: dog season! "What's dog season?" you ask? Well, duh: it's the time of year when we spend as many waking hours as possible outside with our pooches, throwing balls and frolicking. No snark here, folks -- we've got nothing but love for man's best friend. And if you're anything like us, you know that it can get awfully hot out there for an excited dog covered in a year-round fur coat. Dog lovers in parts of Japan have it especially hard this time of year, with oppressive heat and humidity dominating the summer months, which is where Petline's Heat Index Checker for Dogs comes in. The device attaches to dog collars or cages, and monitors the environment where it's placed. Should the situation get too hot under the collar (or cage), the device lights up and buzzes to alert owners. There's even a human mode for monitoring your own environment.
Yes, this is dog: No More Woof aims to translate canine thoughts into human speech
Head over to Indiegogo today and you'll find a particularly wacky (and risky) project bidding for your investment. It's a device that goes by the name of No More Woof, which admittedly sounds like it does horrible things to dogs' vocal cords, but which actually promises something very different. It's a canine-sized headset that consists of EEG recorders connected to a small Raspberry Pi computer and a loudspeaker, supposedly allowing "ionic current flows" in a dog's brain to be translated into human speech. A $65 model is said to distinguish between three different thoughts, including tiredness and curiosity, while more expensive options will have more sensors and more powerful software. The only hold-up (and it's a big one) is that this project is being offered for crowdfunding while still at the concept stage, and all investment will be kept even if the funding target isn't met. According to a disclaimer on the Indiegogo page: "Yes, we HAVE achieved some results, but we are very far from a mass-producable product. That said, we believe that within a few years the technologies we are working with will revolutionize our relation to pets and animals." Indeed, there's no evidence that ST, the Scandinavian research lab behind No More Woof and last year's equally strange iRock rocking chair, has managed to come up with anything like a working prototype -- or at least there's no sign of one in the long-but-vacant video embedded below. Nevertheless, if dog barks are eventually mistranslated by this sort of "novelty science" (a word ST actually uses to describe its own research), who'll be any the wiser?
Go-Go Dog Pals lets you exercise Rover without tapping your precious calorie reserve
Sure you love your dog, but having him watch you sit on the sofa doesn't constitute playtime. Standing up and even running around outside together will surely get the job done, but why get up for exercise when you're perfectly comfortable on the couch? That's the idea behind Go-Go Dog Pals, coined "the funnest most fun way to exercise your dog." Unless you have a few acres to play with beyond the front door, you'll still need to to bring Rover out to the yard before unleashing the wireless gopher look-alike, but there finally appears to be a solution for controlling your dog just as you do your TV -- with a remote. The Go-Go has plenty of pep under the hood, thanks to its dual-motor, four-wheel drive and top speed of 35 kilometers (22 miles) per hour, and it could be yours for the not-so-modest sum of $300. There is a $25 discount on order, if you can pull the trigger by July 1st -- just enter "CHASE" at checkout. Paws-on video is just past the break.
eSleeper combines cats, Arduino and Twitter in an eMac shell (video)
If we had to imagine our dream DIY project chances are it would involve Arduino, Twitter and, of course, cats. How we'd combine those things we're not sure, but we'll admit to being big fans of Samuel Cox's eSleeper, which turns a hollowed-out eMac into a bed for his feline. Inside the shell is an Arduino Ethernet connected to an IR sensor, some LEDs and a sound shield. When the cat breaks the infrared beam it triggers the iconic Mac chime and turns on a series color-shifting LEDs for a little mood lighting. From there the clock starts ticking. When little Fluffy (Captain Whiskers? Matlock? Penny? Greg?) decides she's had enough napping and leaves the white plastic cocoon, tripping the IR sensor again, a random phrase is tweeted, along with the length of the cat's siesta. Check out the video after the break to see the eSleeper in all its adorable DIY glory.
DIY cat feeder now enabled by a Cisco switch, streams food and video
You know, there are times when you have to part ways with your adorable kitties at home, and you might not be so keen on getting a cat sitter in case he or she touches your precious game consoles (even if it's an old granny). We've seen the lazy man's solution before, but Britain's Mathew Newton has brought us a new DIY internet-enabled cat feeder just in time for a new decade. Rather than using a CD-ROM tray to push-release unknown quantities of cat food, Mathew's version has a motor-driven cereal dispenser controlled by signal from port status LEDs on a Cisco switch -- an ingenious way to avoid expensive Ethernet relay units. When it's feeding time the user logs onto a web interface to choose the dispensing quantity, or you can also have an automatic feed schedule set up if you trust the system -- Mathew said he "can rely on it 100%," and his cats do appear to be healthy. Fortunately, you can always check the live video stream just in case you have doubts. All is explained in the video after the break.
Cat Faucet solves elusive cat drinking from sink issue, we sigh in relief
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]
