My friends know me for
coming up with weird ideas to make money, and they know me even more for
my tendency not to pursue them. No, I guess I'm not the real
businessman that I've always wanted to be. In fact, if I think
about it, I haven't made a single centavo from any of the hundreds of
ideas that I've come up with since high school.
From
low-cost housing wherein tenants are stored in stacked drawer-like chests
during bedtime (everyone tells me it's morbid), to deep-fried chicken
bones for snacking, to robotic fighting cocks that will never lose in the
cockpit. I've said it all. The one that takes the cake though
is our
talking
dog.
My
business partners (friends who, like me, sometimes see light in weird
ideas) are not always on my side, but this is one idea that we knew
could make us rich. Yep, a talking dog. The reason is
very simple - there are many dog-owners in America who are willing to
spend good money to spoil their dogs. These people will move heaven
and earth just to be able to talk to their dogs.
This
was our plan: we will build a collar that will analyze the dog's movements
and sounds, and use digital signal processing to categorize them into one
of a few specific circumstances, i.e., the dog is hungry, the dog wants to
go out, the dog wants to play, etc. A speech synthesizer will then blurt
out a sentence corresponding to that circumstance, i.e., 'I am hungry', 'I
want to go out', 'I want to play,' etc.
Now
here's the trick: limit the number of circumstance categories, but
make the number of sentences very, very large. There are two main reasons
why the categories must be limited: 1) in reality, a dog's life is so
simple that you can indeed classify the major events of its life into a
few categories; and 2) it makes signal processing easier because fewer
categories will allow easier differentiation between categories. On
the other hand, the number of available sentences must be very large because
this is the only way you can give your customer the illusion that his or
her dog is really talking.
Imagine
a dog panting very hard after a long run saying
'I'm
really tired' to
its master. On another similar day it may say
'I
could really use some rest',
or 'That really took
the air out of me',
or even
'I'm getting
too old for this.'
These are all under the same category, i.e., the dog is tired, but the
owner is deceived into believing that his dog can really talk because of
the variable responses that the dog gives from time to time.
There's
no rocket science involved either. There are now low-cost,
easy-to-use, accelerometers and microphones that can sense the dog's
movements and sounds, respectively. Signals from these sensors can
be processed by using a low-cost off-the-shelf DSP, which will also do the
talking for the dog. The challenge is not in making the idea work,
but in making the collar and whatever power supply it needs convenient to
wear.
We
likewise have alternative solutions for this project. Since a dog
can easily learn tricks, you can just assign a head movement or sound to
every circumstance, and every circumstance can trigger a sentence, as
discussed. The dog will eventually learn for itself which movement or
sound gets him a biscuit and which movement or sound opens the door.
This approach is like teaching the dog how to speak our language, and was
actually shown in the movie 'Congo', wherein a gorilla was taught to
communicate to her master in English using hand signals.
After
a month of toying with the idea, we published it in the internet to look
for investors. We only got one response. One hesitant, doubtful,
sarcastic response that dampened our spirits and made us vow never to toy
with dog ideas ever again.
Four
years later, a Japanese company announced that it has developed a gadget
that 'translates dog barks into human language'. In Japan
alone, the company has sold 300,000 units since its launch a few months
ago. They will introduce the device to the U.S. market for $120 apiece to
fulfill the dreams of 67 million American dog owners.
Four
years ago, we only needed two years and an investor to launch the
product. Now we are just shaking our heads while reading the news.
Lesson learned? Always sell your ideas because if you don't, someone
else will. How very true. How very true indeed.
=========================
Dog
translation device coming to U.S.
Monday,
March 24, 2026 Posted: 12:15 PM EST (1715 GMT)
ATLANTA,
Georgia (Reuters) -- If you're wondering why your pooch howls at the moon,
growls at the mailman or barks uncontrollably at squirrels, the answer may
be only a click away.
A
Japanese toy maker claims to have developed a gadget that translates dog
barks into human language and plans to begin selling the product -- under
the name Bowlingual -- in U.S. pet stores, gift shops and retail outlets
this summer.
Tokyo-based
Takara Co. Ltd. says about 300,000 of the dog translator devices have been
sold since its launch in Japan late last year. It is forecasting far
bigger sales once an English-language version comes to America in August.
The
United States is home to about 67 million dogs, more than six times the
number in Japan.
"We
know that the Americans love their dogs so much, so we don't think they
will mind spending $120 on this product," Masahiko Kajita, a Takara
marketing manager, said during an interview at a recent pet products
convention in Atlanta.
Cited
as one of the coolest inventions of 2002 by Time magazine, Bowlingual
consists of a 3-inch long wireless microphone that attaches to a dog
collar and transmits sounds to a palm-sized console that is linked to a
database.
The
console classifies each woof, yip or whine into six emotional categories
-- happiness, sadness, frustration, anger, assertion and desire -- and
displays common phrases, such as "You're ticking me off," that
fit the dog's emotional state.
Takara
says it has spent hundreds of millions of yen developing the device in
cooperation with acoustics experts and animal behaviorists and hopes to
sell 1 million units in the United States in the first eight months after
its launch.
It
is undeterred by those who scoff at the idea of paying $120 to read a
dog's mind. "Of course people are always really skeptical at first,
but once they see a demo they are amazed and impressed," Takara
spokesman Kennedy Gitchel says.
It
is no secret that the product is being launched at a time of solid growth
in the $30-billion U.S. pet products market, often considered to be one of
the best examples of a recession-proof industry.
Sales
in this niche sector have been buoyed in recent years by a steady rise in
pet ownership, which has fueled demand for basic pet necessities as well
as high-end items such as air-conditioned dog houses and rhinestone ferret
collars.
The
increasing importance of the industry was highlighted by the nation's
reaction to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Many Americans found
consolation in the familiar routines of their pets and were willing to pay
to pamper their furry friends.
That
trend continued in the months afterward as U.S. authorities tightened
security across the nation and moved closer to a military attack on Iraq,
industry insiders say.
"As
fear, tension and insecurity continue to rise in the nation, people are
turning to their pets for comfort," says Robert Vetere, executive
vice president of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, an
industry trade group. "They don't mind spending more on them."
Whether
the same will hold true when Bowlingual hits the U.S. market is anybody's
guess.
Sharper
Image Corp. and Petsmart Inc., the No. 1 U.S. pet products company, are
among the retailers that have expressed an interest in carrying the
product, but so far no deals have been reached, according to Takara.
One
thing that does appear certain is that the market for animal translation
products will likely remain a dog's world since Takara has no plans to
develop a similar device for cats.
"They
are too unpredictable," Kajita said.
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