Meowlingual

[alexxandra]

This isn't a joke, apparently it's deadly serious!

A Japanese toymaker has developed a device that translates cats' meows into
human speech
Japanese toymaker Takara looks set to herald a new age of communication between
humans and felines with a device which converts a cat's meows into human speech.

The Meowlingual, a gadget which gives cat owners Dr. Dolittle-like powers of
discerning their pets' emotions, will be launched in Japan this November, a
company spokeswoman told newswire AFP.

This announcement comes a year after the firm introduced a similar device --
Bowlingual -- which translates a dog's woofs into words through voice-pattern
recognition.

Bowlingual consists of a wireless microphone that is attached to the dog's
collar and a terminal which analyses and matches each bark with a set of
pre-programmed phrases. The device detects feelings -- including happiness,
frustration and sadness -- and displays the associated expressions on the
terminal's LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screen.

Meowlingual is expected to work in a similar fashion, although for the half the
cost of its canine predecessor.

The cat language-translator device has a price tag of 8,800 yen (£46.66),
significantly less than the 14,800 yen that dog owners pay for Bowlingual, the
report said.

Despite the price, Takara said demand for the Bowlingual has outstripped supply,
with over 300,000 units being sold in the six months since its launch last
September. Since then, the device has been launched in South Korea and is now
geared for its US debut next month.

The firm now hopes to equal this success and aims to achieve the same sales
tally for the Meowlingual by 2004, according to the report.

"We do not have an immediate plan to sell the product (the Meowlingual) overseas
but this could be a possibility," the spokeswoman was quoted as saying.

The report said shares of Takara rose 5.68 percent to 781 yen following the
announcement this morning.