What’s better than working at Amazon? Well, translating cats’ meows into human words, apparently! Read on to discover one of the most amazing mobile applications ever created…
Cats’ Meows Into Human Speech
If you didn’t know, Javier Sanchez made his name in the tech world as one of the minds behind Amazon’s Alexa. Now, he’s a project manager in Bellvue, Washington, working for tech giant Akvelon. Their newest application, spearheaded by Sanchez, is sure to have cat lovers over the moon. Sanchez claims that he’s created an app, named MeowTalk, that can translate cats’ meows and purrs into human speech!
Currently, there are plenty of fake cat translate apps out there. However, MeowTalk will not give out full sentences as those apps do. Instead, it will give out short descriptions of your cat’s mood. “It’s not a language. They don’t share words or communicate with each other. Cats never meow at each other out in nature,” Sanchez explained.
Incredible, Sanchez has the research to back their claims up! They did months of research, trying to figure out precisely what cats’ mean with their little noises. In the end, they determined that the nine meows represent different broad feelings, like “I’m happy,” “I need something,” and “I’m upset.” Now, using his experience from working on Alexa, Sanchez hopes to make it easier than ever to translate the family’s furry friend’s meows!
Recognizing Unique Voices
Of course, the app will first need to be tailored to the cat’s particular meows. “Using machine learning MeowTalk instantaneously translates your cat’s meows into one of nine general cat intents; these nine intents represent cat moods and states of mind. But each cat also has its own unique vocalization and vocabulary of meows that goes beyond these nine general intents,” the app’s description reads. “You can train the MeowTalk app to learn your cat’s unique vocabulary of meows (cat talk) by telling the app what each meow means when your cat makes it. When you give the app 5 to 10 examples of a specific meow for your cat (e.g. ‘food’, ‘let me out’) the app can start to recognize that meow (be your cat translator) when it hears it.”
As the app listens to more meows, they are saved and profiled. The application can also learn the pet’s tone of voice with the option to fine-tune it. For now, the application remains in active development, with the team testing the app and listening to feedback and critiques. With each round of testing, they fix more flaws, perfecting an app that will undoubtedly make cat owners around the world jump with joy. If you’d like to test the Beta system, the demo app is currently available for both Android and Apple phones!
In the future, Sanchez would like to expand the MeowTalk market. Namely collars, of course! How amazing would it be to have a collar that could translate your cat’s meows, without the need for an app? That could certainly be the future!
Sources: BendBulletin, MSN