Title: Early Explorations of CAT: Canine Amusement and Training
Author: Chadwick Wingrave, Todd Langston, Jeremy Rose and Joseph LaViola Jr.
Venue: CHI 2010, April 10-15
Summary:
This article is about how improvements in technology can be applied to other species, specifically dogs. The authors theorize that using computers to help train and entertain dogs will improve the canine-human bond. This project included a projector mounted on the ceiling to project different colored circles on the floor, and a tracking device attacked to the dog. The human can then select one of several modes to play the game. These modes are focused mostly on basic training, such as teaching your dog to come to you or stay.
Discussion:
I thought the whole thing was a bit silly. Training dogs is much less expensive when you use a bag of treats. Furthermore, the colored circles are largely pointless for the dog, as dogs can't see color, so they only server a visual aid to the human. Additionally, I'm not really sure why they didn't just place a couple circular colored mats on the floor. Its possible they wanted to keep the whole project electronic, but if you expect your system to make it into the consumer market, you can't expect everyone to put a projector on their ceiling.
I'm not a big fan of animals, so for people like me, I don't think this would be very successful nor marketable... However, I do know people that treat their dogs literally as they would treat their own children, so maybe there are people out there that would pay for an application like this one. It would be interesting to see the outcomes if such a technology goes to the market...
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