[HN Gopher] Video games for dogs aim to help aging canine brains
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Video games for dogs aim to help aging canine brains
Author : cpeterso
Score : 43 points
Date : 2023-02-26 18:27 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| evolve2k wrote:
| > He notes that Joipaw's games are not meant to be a replacement
| for spending time with your dog.
|
| I read this as 'child'.
| drekipus wrote:
| Dogs have replaced children for most people.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| Sorry, this is wrong in multiple ways. People that own dogs
| are a small percentage of any countries population. About 20%
| in USA, far lower than the number of people that have
| children. Additionally, cat ownership is higher quite a few
| countries, certainly not all.
| https://www.petsecure.com.au/pet-care/a-guide-to-
| worldwide-p...
| fourseventy wrote:
| On some level this is in the same category as getting a
| psychologist for your chickens.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| > run on a custom saliva-resistant touch-screen console
|
| So a standard resistive touch screen?
| blensor wrote:
| Not sure about their product but resistive touch screens can
| require quite a bit of pressure which is a separate step of
| training the pet to overcome this.
|
| Another product in that space was CleverPet, I backed that on
| Kickstarter and our dog enjoyed it quite a lot but it also
| required some pressure
|
| https://youtu.be/tU5tMOIJfpo
| extrememacaroni wrote:
| should've called it a lick screen
| KMag wrote:
| Side note: when I was basically doing browser emulation in
| Google's indexing pipeline 20 years ago, I ripped through a
| billion of the 4 billion top web pages and counted HTML tag
| attributes found in the wild, in order to prioritize
| emulation efforts.
|
| "onlick" was a surprisingly common misspelling of "onclick".
| There must have been quite a few web developers wondering why
| their click handlers weren't working, but I imagined them
| furiously licking their screens, attempting to debug what was
| wrong with their taste-o-vision enabled webpages.
| ben_w wrote:
| On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Well, except
| for the furries; I recognise at least one username here
| from my IRC days.
|
| I had a similar thing where I kept spelling things
| "folating" pallets instead of "floating". I kinda miss the
| days where floating pallets were a standard UI item.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| even worse if you have a tight font kerning that blends the
| _c_ and the _l_..
| ScipioAfricanuz wrote:
| What determines whether a dog can understand screens? Mine don't,
| yet i've seen videos of dogs watching tv shows
| raydiatian wrote:
| > saliva-resistant touch-screen console
|
| Had me laughing out loud in public like a fucking jackass
| ww520 wrote:
| Here's a business idea. Create a robotic dog as a dog companion.
| Large language models that can fool adult human can certainly
| converse with dogs. Couple it with Boston Dynamic's dog robot and
| you have workable version.
| jacobgorm wrote:
| Another company with a shipping product in this space;
| https://go-dogo.com/
| rapind wrote:
| Honestly, just talk to your dog. I will talk to her like she's a
| real person but with a slightly more exaggerated tone and she
| loves it. I.e. "Did you sleep all day again!?"
| ambientenv wrote:
| Exactly this. Talk to them. At length. Take them out for walks
| and runs. Let them explore and sniff and meet other dogs. Let
| them chase a ball or a stick. Hide a treat and let them find
| it. Cuddle them. Oh, but wait. That requires work and
| involvement. Better to stick 'em in front of a screen, just
| like we do with kids.
| vasco wrote:
| You can do both, HN of all places to find luddites is weird.
| If there's something my doggo can do while I'm working that
| just seems great.
| cameronfraser wrote:
| I think their response is motivated by virtue signaling
| instead of being adverse to technology, but yeah I agree
| you can do both.
| sourcecodeplz wrote:
| Meanwhile some people still don't have access to clean drinking
| water.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| messe wrote:
| Presumably, you're donating 100% of your own efforts to remedy
| that? (With the occasional and understandable break to comment
| on HN, of course)
| serf wrote:
| everyone else is replying with 'Yeah, and whatabou-you?!?' ,
| which I think is non-constructive.
|
| i'd just like to remind _everyone_ that when you see something
| that represents an effort that you feel is trivial , it doesn
| 't represent an opportunity to add effort elsewhere.
|
| A thousand dog exercise machines won't fix world thirst. The
| people that work on dog exercise machines aren't going to
| suddenly divest all their effort from exercising dogs and throw
| themselves into tackling world-thirst should their company
| dissolve tomorrow.
|
| 'World effort' isn't one big commoditizable sum.
| xenospn wrote:
| Assuming you're on your way to deliver them much-needed clean
| drinking water while typing this comment?
| favaq wrote:
| They've had the same time we've had to build a system to
| deliver clean water to themselves - if they haven't it's their
| fault and they deserve what they have (or don't have).
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Ah yes. The << they should have work harder at school >>
| argument.
|
| I struggle with this one. People are not idiot, if water is
| scarce, it's usually due to external factors.
|
| Having grow up in a major colonial power, I sure benefits for
| the extraction of resources that happened since the late
| 17's.
|
| On the receiving end, societies being reduce to mere shadows
| of themselves by force does not exactly help.
|
| Moreover, Some existing irrigation systems have been abandon
| during colonial times for lack of workers. ( workers being
| either diverted to slavery or other more lucrative endeavors
| for the colonial power )
|
| Finally, modern pollution is a thing.
|
| Are the resident of Ohio responsible for their newly polluted
| water?
|
| Or the one of Jacksonville, Ms, they should have voted
| differently to avoid flooding of their system?
|
| Same for Flint, Mi. They had a working infrastructure.
| Distributing water just fine. It was broken for years. Is it
| their fault?
|
| I struggle to see the benefit of finger pointing here, as
| opposed to human empathy and << yep, that sucks >>
|
| Finally, and the examples above were hitting at that :
| drinking water is not a problem in country lacking propers
| infrastructure anymore.
|
| The list of US cities having issues is growing; and the
| causes are diverse. From negligence to poor location ( haha;
| Las Vegas )
|
| My point : saying << they should have a infrastructure by now
| >> is silly.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| True. But if you know a bit about programming and a lot about
| dogs, that won't necessarily translate into being able to help
| with infrastructure.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Are we to have no fun at all because people suffer elsewhere?
| smoldesu wrote:
| You make a fairer point than people realize. In 2023 we need
| less 'dog video game' disruption and more impact. Trying to
| commodify increasingly stupid things is a direct product of the
| startup culture this site (and Twitter + the community at-
| large) promotes.
|
| This will look more embarassing than a professional history
| with fushigi balls if you put it on your resume. It doesn't
| matter if you're Joipaw-scale or DogTV.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Agreed. What we really need is a new payroll system with an
| API that uses GraphQL instead of Rest.
|
| But seriously: niche products always look uninteresting and
| stupid to someone, and niche products trace all the way to
| folk crafts. cottage industries, and open air markets. Making
| video games for dogs is neither embarrassing nor a "product
| of startup culture". It's just something somebody thought was
| cool and put some time and money into. It's great.
| int_19h wrote:
| There's no "we". Different people need different things.
| [deleted]
| b1c1jones wrote:
| Time for smellovision.
| qiller wrote:
| All of my dogs pretty much ignored screens, with studies
| suggesting reasons from the refresh rate to lacking smell and
| tactile feedback - wonder if playing video games can be taught
| mertd wrote:
| As a scent hound owner, if something doesn't smell, it might as
| well not exist. He also ignores mirrors. They live in a very
| different sensory world. I wish I could experience his and he
| could experience ours.
| bitwize wrote:
| Also a scent hound owner here, can confirm. For her, the
| sniffer is The Source of Truth(tm). When I enter the house,
| she comes up and gives me a thorough sniffdown, as if she
| weren't confident in me being me until she confirmed that I
| smell like me.
| nyjah wrote:
| Not mine. My rotty left a massive smudge on a 32 inch screen
| when a lion crossed and she decided to attack or at least
| investigate. Now I have a german shepherd and a much bigger
| screen. She's not super into TV, but I'll catch her high
| focused and attentive to the screen from time to time. Just
| depends whats on.
|
| Dogs are all different. That same rotty would chase flashlight.
| And that same flashlight is invisible to my german shepherd.
| Any toy or activity is going to vary dog to dog.
| matwood wrote:
| One of mine will see a dog on the tv and start growling. My
| other two only respond to barking on the tv, then look around
| like they are being punked.
| joshu wrote:
| my dog will ignore screens, usually, but if you pause it with a
| person on the screen, she will EVENTUALLY (like 30 minutes
| later) notice there is a person in the living room and start
| growling. or maybe she just doesn't appreciate Jupiter
| Ascending
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(page generated 2023-02-26 23:00 UTC)