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Miami zoo orangutans use iPads to communicate
iPads are everywhere, even in the orangutan cages at Miami's Jungle Island. As reported by Fox News, the Florida zoo is experimenting with iPads and using them to communicate with their apes. The apes are using a graphics-rich app designed to communicate with autistic children. Not surprisingly, it's the younger apes that are most adept at picking up the iPad, while the older ones just ignore it. Linda Jacobs, who oversees the iPad project, is excited by the possibility of letting other people communicate with the zoo's orangutans, Currently, only those trained in the ape's sign language can effectively communicate with the animals. Now that the orangutans are armed with iPads, they can talk to untrained personnel and maybe even interact with park visitors.
Students build self-balancing TIPI robot, plan new world order (video)
Remember this guy, the QB robot that was priced at a whopping 15 grand? Seemingly, the webcam wheeler inspired a team of young minds at the University of Waterloo, who've unleashed the DIY in themselves to build one of their own. TIPI, or Telepresence Interface by Pendulum Inversion, was designed to give humans the feeling that they're not actually talking to a six-foot tall cyclops cyborg with an LCD face and webcam eye, but rather, evoke the emotions drawn when speaking the old, conventional, face-to-face way. Thanks to this team of mechatronics engineers, the low-cost TIPI uses an accelerometer, gyro and pendulum to balance by itself and can be remotely controlled while communicating via its Beagle Board and Polulu Orangutan SVP brain. Head past the break to see the robot struttin' its stuff -- oh, and get ready to rave. You'll see what we mean.
Orangutans show off video game skills at Atlanta zoo
While they don't yet appear to have tried their hand at Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, a pair of orangutans at Zoo Atlanta have recently started to hone their skills at some slightly simpler fare, which some IBM workers developed for the zoo in their time off. Apparently designed to study the cognitive skills of the primates, the games involve drawing pictures with the touchscreen, picking out identical photographs, and matching orangutan sounds to the proper picture. For each correct answer, the orangutans are rewarded with a food pellet -- something Nintendo would be wise to consider for its next console. [Via FARK, photo courtesy of Gene Blythe/AP]
Orangutans play video games; apocalypse nears
If you've ever played an online game, you already know that this hobby is beloved by subhuman creatures. But now, even orangutans are getting their game on. Zoo Atlanta is conducting research on the adorable primates with computers built into "tree-like structures." "In one program, a picture of an orangutan appears on the screen. Every time the real primate touches the photo, the visual disappears and the animal receives a treat."That's all? Come on, dude! Totally easy! How many Xbox Live achievement points does the orangutan get for that?
