It has been so long that I can't remember when I last spoke with my dear old friend Govind. We use to work together back in Seattle. He is one guy who I have a lot of respect for and when he talks, you shutup and listen (yes I know that is very difficult for me to do). It is interesting the twists life throws at one and how everyone adapts and changes. It is difficult to imagine him now and how his priorities and what he is passionate about has shifted – one won't even fathom the idea in your wildest dream.

I don't even know why am I surprised about change – after all the only constant is change. Maybe I'll learn someday – though don't hold your breath.

Extremetech has an article evaluating the US release of Bow-Lingual which aims to translate “dog” to “English”, i.e. converting simple dog barks to phrases. There is a wireless mic that hooks up to the dog’s collar and a unit that you hold to see the result. When the dog barks or whines, the recording device is triggered which then records raw, unfiltered sound for the next three seconds. After recording, the sample is segmented into four equal length audio components, each coming in around .75 seconds in length, each of which is broken down into voice prints and matched again a “database of voice prints”.

The Bow-Lingual then attempts to match this short segment against a voice print in the database. If the system finds a match, the bark is interpreted into one of six emotional categories: Happy, Sad, On-Guard, Frustrated, Assertive and Needy. Apparently your complex dog is only capable of six emotions. If there’s no match, then the unit fails by displaying a sideways-tilting dog head. Oddly, the emotion indicated by that dog posture – questioning – isn’t one of the identifiable categories.

I have of course not used this (don’t have dog or the money to waste on this), but to me this seems just a load of baloney! If someone has used this out there, what do they think?