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Posts with tag pets

Garmin DC 30 GPS Dog Collar Turns Hunting Into a Videogame

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jun 27th 2008 at 7:45AM

Garmin DC 30 dog tracker
Here's one for the hunters. Strap the Garmin DC 30 collar onto your hunting dog, fire up your Astro 220 receiver, and you'll not only know where your dog is, but you'll also know if he is running, pointing, or treeing, even in dense cover.

Range is good for up to seven miles, and the tracking even covers the dog's direction so you can figure out where that delicious nubbin of turkey is hiding. The receiver can track up to 10 dogs at once, and the collar is good for 17-36 hours on one charge. The DC 30 is sold separately for $199.99 or for $649.99 as part of an Astro 220 combo, and should be available third-quarter 2008. [Source: PRNewswire]
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New Security System Interprets Guard Dog Barking

by Will Safer, posted May 22nd 2008 at 11:00AMBreaking News

When a dog barks, do you know what it is saying – or at least trying to say?

A system designed by an Israeli tech firm is being employed by the Israel Prison Service to help guards understand when a guard dog's barking is "normal" and when the dog is stressed, which could mean that a dangerous situation is developing.

Guard dogs are often able to sense a developing situation well before people or automated systems recognize danger – but human guards often don't hear the dogs or ignore the barking until it is too late.

Watch a video demonstration here.

That's why the developers at Bio-Sense, a high-tech company near Tel Aviv, created the program to interpret dog barks. They recorded thousands of dog barks from a variety of situations, from playtime to cat encounters to real emergencies. They then analyzed the barking to differentiate between normal and emergency situations. Now they claim the system identifies when a dog senses a problem and when it is just, ahem, crying wolf.

This goes well beyond the the LED light that purportedly interprets what a dog's wagging tail means, although a group of Hungarian scientists have developed a fairly complex program to interpret the language of the Mudi herding breed. The Hungarian system does not appear to be used by anyone yet for practical purposes.

The system from Bio-Sense, however, is in place with more than 100 clients in Israel, from prisons that want to prevent jail breaks to farmers who are trying to prevent theft. [Source: USA Today.]
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12 Top Pet Gadgets

by Dan Reilly, posted Apr 30th 2008 at 12:10AM

We already knew that people love uploading pictures of their pets online, but we had no idea how many gadgets and toys are available for our animal friends. From the bizarre to the practical, there's tons of tech out there that's designed to benefit owners and the pets themselves. Check out our list of some of the best gadgets available for pets, because it's time to stop spoiling ourselves with shiny new toys and treat our little companions instead.



GoDogGo! Automatic Fetch Machine

Busy. Tired. Neglectful. Whatever you are, sometimes you just can't play fetch with your dog. Unless, of course, you pick up the automated fetch machine, GoDogGo! Take this gadget, load it up with tennis balls -- six of which are included -- and start firing away. You can manually fire the balls or set them to launch automatically every 7 or 15 seconds between 15 and 30 feet. Set it up in your yard with the included AC adapter or run it at the park with six D batteries, and you'll have an easy, lazy solution to playing with your "best friend."
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LOLCats Site Is Hiring

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Apr 24th 2008 at 4:02PMBreaking News

You Can Has Job At I Can Has Cheezburger
Imagine being paid to look at pictures like the one above all day. The popular Lolcat (adorable pictures of cats with funny captions and poor grammar) site I Can Has Cheezburger is hiring, and wants you to sit in its Seattle offices and help it moderate comments and sort through the over 7,000 daily submissions of Lolcat photos.

Of course, a site powered by bad spelling and grammar isn't going to hold subject lines like this, "I can haz dream Job? My rezumez! let me showz u thm," against you. So even those who have failed to learn how to use spell check can apply. [Source: AOL Money & Finance]
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12 Wacky Pet Gadgets

by Dan Reilly, posted Apr 23rd 2008 at 1:02PMFeatured Story

We already knew that people love uploading pictures of their pets online, but we had no idea how many gadgets and toys are available for our animal friends. From the bizarre to the practical, there's tons of tech out there that's designed to benefit owners and the pets themselves. Check out our list of some of the best gadgets available for pets, because it's time to stop spoiling ourselves with shiny new toys and treat our little companions instead.



GoDogGo! Automatic Fetch Machine

Busy. Tired. Neglectful. Whatever you are, sometimes you just can't play fetch with your dog. Unless, of course, you pick up the automated fetch machine, GoDogGo! Take this gadget, load it up with tennis balls -- six of which are included -- and start firing away. You can manually fire the balls or set them to launch automatically every 7 or 15 seconds between 15 and 30 feet. Set it up in your yard with the included AC adapter or run it at the park with six D batteries, and you'll have an easy, lazy solution to playing with your "best friend."
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LED Gadget Translates Your Dog's Tail Wags

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Apr 9th 2008 at 7:41PM

LED Gadget Translates Your Dog's Tail Wags

We've seen toys that claim to decifer dog barks (and even fancy computers that can decode the barks of a particular breed of dog better than humans can), but we still haven't seen a big glowing sign that spells out what your dog is trying to say -- until now.

Okay, truth be told, you still won't, at least not at home, unless you run to New York's MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) for a demo at the Elastic Mind exhibit, since this device is just a concept.

The proposed device would attach to the dog's tail, measure his or her WPM (Wags Per Minute) and use that to figure out what he/she is trying to say. It would then spell out your canine's message in LED lights in mid air as the your dogs tail wags, turning it into a tacky novelty message board.

From Engadget

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Top 10 Funniest Pet Web Sites

by Blake Besharian, posted Apr 2nd 2008 at 8:03PM

Perhaps one of the most popular things to do on the Internet is upload and broadcast pictures of your beloved animals. Everything from pictures and videos to podcasts of pet shenanigans have found ample homes online. Unfortunately, the vast majority of pet sites are of the nausea-inducing "cute" variety. Since pets can induce hours of laughter (regardless of whether they're wearing Groucho glasses or ladies' hats or not), we here at Switched decided to scour the Web for funny pet sites, and we found quite a few. What follows is a sampling of our favorite funny pet sites, some old, some new. Funny, of course, depends on the mind of the beholder, but we'd be lying if we didn't admit that we pretty much guffawed at every last site on this list. Check them out....






1. Lolcats
Lolcats are funny pictures of cats doing dumb things with broken, misspelled English captions placed over them. The result is often hilarious, such as a cat jumping out of a toilet with the following caption: "I'M IN UR TOILET USIN' UR FACILITIES." The central hub for all things lolcat, icanhascheezburger.com, is currently enjoying a resurgence of popularity after a few months of hype-trend-overload. The site has been online for two years and now includes a constellation of sites for lolcats, loldogs and political lolz -- the same thing, but for dogs and politicians.
If you're wondering how to make your own Lolcat, which is as simple as taking a goofy picture of your cat, adding a caption, and uploading it here, then check out the site's "wiki" tutorial designed to help people learn lolspeak, the broken English used on the site. The site also has a "lolz builder," which allows you to create your own lol-based-image with minimal effort and no software (they even supply pictures for you to caption). This means that there are new lolz posted all the time, which makes Lolcats the ultimate place to go for hilarious cat humor.
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Senior Citizens Like Robo-Dogs As Much As Real Dogs

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Feb 28th 2008 at 6:07PM

Robot Dogs Just as Good as Real Dogs?
Pets (dogs, in particular) have long been used to alleviate feelings of loneliness and depression in nursing home residents. But not robots, at least until now. Researchers in St. Louis, Missouri, conducted a study of 38 senior citizens in a nursing homes. The residents were divided into three groups.... The first group was regularly visited by Sparky, an adorable floppy eared mutt. The second group got to spend time with AIBO, the now discontinued robot dog from Sony, while the third group had no visits from flesh, blood, fur, plastic or gears.

Logic would lead you to believe that the real dog would bring significantly more comfort to each of the residents, and that they would develop a stronger attachment to Sparky. Even the researchers clearly expected this result. Surprisingly, the AIBO was shown to be just as effective at alleviating loneliness and the participants grew just as attached to robotic mutt as they did to the living, breathing version.

As an added bonus, the robotic dogs require much less care and attention than a live animal. So senior citizens who are too physically or mentally frail to properly care for a pet can still obtain some of the benefits of companionship, without the worry of neglecting an animal.

Hey, it might seem kind of strange or funny, but in Japan, much of the bleeding-edge robotic innovation is focused solely on creating "helpers" for the elderly. Who knew it could be done so cheaply with a plastic dog lik AIBO?

From AOL News/Reuters

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Kitty Bum Pencil Sharpener

by Terrence O'Brien, posted May 4th 2007 at 2:04PM


We've got the perfect office accessory for anyone who, to put it lightly, considers him or herself "more of a dog person." The hilarious Cat's Arse Sharpener not only looks stylish on your desk, but it also does a pro job of keeping your pencil tips razor sharp -- which it does with its bum. Simply stab the poor creature in the rear, wait for the electronic "meow" and twist away. The shavings are collected in the kitty's litter box!

Wait 'til PETA gets a load of this . . .

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From Shiny Shiny
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Feed Your Pets Without Bending Over

by Tim Stevens, posted Apr 27th 2007 at 11:12AM

The health benefits of owning pets are well documented, and the value of their companionship can't be quantified, so it's no surprise that people often turn to four-legged roommates to get over empty nest syndrome. Problem is, when you get older, simple things like bending over to pick up a pet's food bowl from the floor can be quite a task.

Enter disabled engineer Ray Dinham and his DinnerUp. Available only in Europe at this point, the £69.00 device (about $140) is basically a tray that raises and lowers with a hand crank, enabling you to fill bowls with food and water, place them on the tray, then crank them down to the floor where Fido and/or Fluffy can dig in. While Ray has yet to design a device that will pick up the little treats your pets are likely to leave behind a few hours later, here's hoping that's in development.

From BBC News
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Truth About Cats and Dogs (and Photos)

by Evan Shamoon, posted Apr 18th 2007 at 5:27PM



If you've been using the Internet lately, you've surely come across pictures of cats in various states of preposterousness. But how do the photographers coax such absurdity out of their pets? Not easily. As anyone who has tried to snap photos of their cat wearing a hollowed-out grapefruit half on his or her head can surely understand, furry creatures can be just as difficult on the runway as a model who hasn't eaten a full meal in six weeks.

The editors at PC World have come to the rescue, fortunately, with a some advice on how to more effectively capture your pet on film. The tips range from the obvious (put them at ease) to the slightly technical (set your camera to Shutter Priority to prevent those quick-moving pets from becoming a total blur), and overall should help you seize your four-legged companion's cuteness for the world to see.

One thing they fail to mention: Bribery (steak, tuna fish, nachos) goes a long way.

From PC World
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Pet-Powered Paper Shredder

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Apr 12th 2007 at 8:30AM

Hamster Shredder Is your pet hamster just sitting around taking up space? Make the little rodent earn his keep! Using an ingenious implementation of Flintstones technology, the Hamster Shredder uses your little guy's exercise wheel to shred your most confidential documents (plans for world domination, etc.).

Why buy bedding for the furball when he can make his own from your credit card statements? Why scream at a machine when you can blame a living creature for paper jams? Because, sadly, the Hamster Shredder is only a prototype at this time, and not for sale.

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From Tech Digest
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