The influence of cats on the development of technology

The relationship between the development of technology and human activity is obvious, but what can affect technological progress other than man?
First of all, nature comes to mind - phenomena honed by millions of years of evolution. We use her enormous experience to create innovative solutions in accordance with natural analogues. As aviation began with close observation of bird flights, so many modern technologies were formed under the influence of the environment.

What about cats? And indeed, when we talk about IT, these of your Internet, we veiled imply the presence of tailed purring. Gadgets for cats - a dynamic market. The global boom of mobile applications spawned such a thing as an interface for animals .
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When did cats and high technology first start working on each other? Fast forward to the recent past, the beginning of the space age. The first travelers are sent to space, and among them is the cat.




USSR dogs, NASA chimpanzees, a host of turtles and mice ... The French surpassed everyone. On October 18, 1963, France launched a rocket with a cat on board into the near-Earth space. The choice of the animal is obvious - small height and weight, modest needs for food, water and air, flexibility and vitality (many cats without any problems experienced a fall from the N floor). That's just the researchers did not take into account the wayward nature of the experimental. The first astrokot that completed the course of complex trainings (including training for noise, vibration, and installation of sensors) escaped shortly before the start. In a rush, he was replaced by a purebred cat Felisette. But she left the scientists with nothing, having escaped after the flight.

In defense of the seals, we note that it was possible to obtain important scientific material. Felissetta had implanted electrodes into the brain, which were used to record information from the left somatosensory and associative areas of the cerebral cortex, from the hippocampus and from the mid-brain zone. It was possible to fix how a living organism behaves in weightlessness. By the way, the behavior of cats in zero gravity can be judged by this video - no, staying in orbit is not for them.

Comilfo animal interface

Kotik is a friend of the programmer. And the programmer, in turn, is a friend of the cat: only recently there have been dozens of applications for animals. Applications for tablets and phones use the simplest animal instinct - hunting for prey. On the screen there may be a red dot, a darting mouse, birds, fish - in the game a pet must show dexterity and perseverance, kicking the display with its paws. And in applications like Here Kitty Kitty, you yourself can lure a curious cat, including the sound of a rustling bag, the chirping of birds, or an opening can of food. For educational purposes, unpleasant, frightening sounds are used, triggered when you try to shove a smartphone or tablet from the table.

Subordinate to the instincts of cats, gamers, however, are very demanding audience. Games for pets have their own specifics. The cat will react to the object only if it feels “alive” - the movements of the virtual “victim” should be natural. In games for cats, a high level of contrast between the target and the background is needed. The sound effects of gaming effects should be chosen with special care - the background music distracts, the sound is used only to highlight the game event.

The first developers of applications for cats got into unpleasant situations, not realizing who the end user is. Of course, most applications were provided for free. They were monetized due to additional levels and new models of game objects. Gambling cats easily made unintended purchases - we had to add tests to the games that determine who the buyer really is.



According to studies, cats have become active users of social networks, and social networks have been developed specifically for them. Catmoji is a social network created for sharing photos of cats and cats. When ordinary networks are filled up with mimicking photos, it is logical to allow the likes and dizlichat (blasphemy) of cute cats to everyone.

Moreover, the cats themselves have become content generators. Snapcat allows pets to take photos of themselves. During the launch of the application on the screen of the gadget appears moving red dot, which attracts the attention of the animal. When the cat touches the screen with its paw, the camera takes a picture. After that you can send a photo to a social network.

Technical superiority

However, for a long time to immerse the seal in the virtual world is impossible. Sooner or later, the animal will be bored with poking at the screen, and the cat will not experience even more pleasure from hundreds of likes. Then gadgets created by a caring, annoying person will invade his world. The purpose of "cat gadgets" can be absolutely anyone. Friskies launched an advertising campaign, during which users could watch the games of cats in the game house, switch from camera to camera, and also remotely control toys on the playground.

At Kickstarter, $ 500,000 was assembled by a Twine device that operates on the principle of “report this if something happens.” A small device sends you messages about all the actions of pets. Through the “smart collar” you will not only find out whether the cat has mumbled or started eating, you can even remotely monitor its temperature. A similar device, Puppy Tweets, sends a programmed tweet when a pet performs an action recorded in a database (for example, sneezes).

More advanced systems can already be considered "robotic nannies" for animals. They belong to a completely new segment of the market - robots for animals. Remotely controlled (including via Twitter) the robot can be equipped with several infrared cameras, speakers and manipulators for active games. The robot will not only provide an opportunity to communicate with the pet via video link, but will also throw a ball for you.

The desire to control every step (or to suppress natural instincts?) Led to the emergence of very advanced systems. Created strange and unusual devices for pets - scanners of any action and movement. A joint development of Sony and the University of Tokyo: a gadget equipped with a camera, an accelerator and a GPS receiver, determines the type of activity of the animal and communicates via Bluetooth with a computer that publishes entries on Twitter. If the animal leaves the house and leaves the safe territory, the Tagg Pet Tracker will send an emergency message.

Gaming devices for cats hundreds. You can choose for every taste. But everyone knows that the best toy for a cat is a vacuum cleaner .

Smart cat house

The modern house of a cat is not only soft bedding and a labyrinth of boxes. A high-tech house cannot be imagined without a temperature and humidity control panel, a carbon deodorizing filter and a phyto filtration (as shown).



Cat toilet - second home - tirelessly inspires engineers and designers. A high-tech toilet can cost thousands of dollars and look like a piece of digital art. The toilet monitors the weight of the animal and, in case of problems, selects options for a healthier diet. The toilet gadget makes cleaning, discharges solid waste into the sewage system, flushes and dries the tray, flavors the smell that does not irritate the animal - and only in the absence of the four-way owner.



In a smart home, eating is a special ritual. Automatic drinkers are equipped with sensors and work exactly when the animal itself, looking into the drinker, needs it. Automatic feeders allow you to program the frequency of feeding and the amount of feed. The feeder can be configured to control via the Internet, and the feeding status (reception time, amount of food) will be posted to the social network or sent via SMS. By the way, such a system will help to react in time if the device breaks down.



Whether cats dream of androids or not, but the technique will not only feed, but also cure. The device Pet Pavilion Pet Incubator & Hotel is an incubator in which ideal conditions for recovery are created - the atmosphere inside is adjusted by several parameters: humidity, temperature, light intensity, air circulation rate.

Tech Inspiration

What can they really inspire us to do? Today cats are implanted with bionic prostheses.



Cats - a source of ideas for numerous inventions. Apple has patented technology to protect the phone. The well-known effect “the cat always lands on its paws” on the phone provides for a revolution in the air to land on the most protected point. The device, registering the state of free fall, will turn in the air due to the mechanism of displacement of the center of gravity. As it seems to us, it was possible to be inspired by such an invention only by observing the cat's somersaults (or there were no relations with sandwiches).

Robotized cats are planned to be used in search and rescue and reconnaissance work, seals are inspired to create soft "varnishing" biorobots (which will help in the future to quickly clean the surface of liquid, for example, spilled oil) and robot runners , and "cat intelligence" is the basis for creating "Brain-like" architecture and experiments on the emulation of the brain.

Genuine peaks have been reached by experts from the University of Michigan (USA). They considered that the cat's brain is an achievable goal of the development of AI. Cats love the routine, better oriented in the familiar space. If you rearrange the furniture in the house, it will take the cat some time to get comfortable. A supercomputer in an "unfamiliar environment" will also be engaged in analysis, but much slower. In addition, the cat's brain, although simpler than a human, is similar to it in the basic laws of functioning. Feline brain modeling is a crucial step towards creating superintelligence.

At the heart of the cat's (as well as any mammal) memory synapses are bifunctional units combining the functions of logic and memory. For computers, scientists suggested using a memristor as an analogue of a synapse, preserving data on recent interactions with electrical signals.

In fact, the computer is created in the same way that nature used to create the cat.