I adore animals, and Sony is my favorite consumer electronics brand. Okay, I admit I'm not the most electronically-connected person in the room, since I prefer human interaction. But gee, a cat collar that tweets has put me over the edge and made me dust off my land phone and turn off my computer.
Sony's Computer Science Lab, in collaboration with the University of Tokyo, recently demonstrated a prototype of CatLog, equipped with a still camera, GPS, accelerometer, and Bluetooth, capable of reporting minute-by-minute activities on Twitter, reports MediaPost News. Preprogrammed phrases are triggered on Twitter based on the cat's actions. For example, when the cat eats, the system tweets "this tastes good." Some of the activities that trigger tweets include eating, facial gestures, jumping, running, and sleeping. All this to give humans a better understanding of their pets and marketers a chance to get cozy with consumers. The tweet could add the name of your brand, when the cat eats, for example.
Dairy farmer Chris Vandenberg uses a similar twitter-based application for his cows residing on Buttermine Farms in Brant, Ontario, Canada. Each cow is equipped with a RFID tag. As a cow approaches the robotic milking pen, the computer reads the tag and determines whether or not the cow is scheduled to be milked based on her stage of lactation and average daily output, and trigger tweets on twitter.
What's next, a tag on your preschoolers or your partner tweeting you incessantly? Meow!
