Bow-lingual
Do you wonder what your dog is thinking? With Bow-lingual, you can just ask them! Released in Japan in 2002, Bow-lingual was a dog-to-human language translation device developed by toy company Takara. The little walkie-talkie-like device listens to the bark of a dog and then categorizes the noise into one of six emotional categories. These are then translated into phrases such as “I’ve had enough” or “I’m a little bored, let’s play.”
The device works by recording your dog’s bark and comparing it against a database of dog noises that have been interpreted by animal behaviorists. It might sound like a scam, but Bow-lingual sold well enough in Japan to debut in the US and Europe a year after its initial release and eventually spawned–you guessed it–Meowlingual for cats. Bow-lingual survived for several years as a smartphone app which shouldn’t be surprising given that this thing absolutely worked…right?
