[HN Gopher] Pet parrots prefer live video-calls
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       Pet parrots prefer live video-calls
        
       Author : agiacalone
       Score  : 49 points
       Date   : 2024-05-02 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | Shermanium wrote:
       | "animal internet" sounds like a future bubble. who funded this
       | besides U Glasgow? imagine having to pay another monthly bill for
       | pet internet!
        
         | idle_zealot wrote:
         | Apparently the parrots got along fine using FB Messenger to
         | call each other, so rather than a distinct "animal internet"
         | it's more "animals on the internet". I suppose that's what
         | happens when you invest effort in designing UI that a toddler
         | can use.
        
         | simcop2387 wrote:
         | This is why years ago I bought the domain www.omeowgle.com that
         | I never got something working for at the time. I was going to
         | setup a video call system for my family to call my cat (and
         | maybe eventually some friends cats too). Now I'm just hosting
         | some social media for my cat on the fediverse there.
         | https://www.omeowgle.com/@buzz
        
           | throwaway81523 wrote:
           | Omegle for parrots would be called parrot-dice right?
        
             | itishappy wrote:
             | how about Stochastic Parrot?
        
         | Freebytes wrote:
         | I have totally wanted to build out "pet VR". Put an animal on a
         | type of treadmill in a virtual world and let them run around.
         | The major issue with the idea is that dogs rely on smell quite
         | a bit so it would likely not be a decent replacement experience
         | for them versus going outdoors.
        
       | throwway120385 wrote:
       | "animal internet" is no where near as interesting as the idea
       | that pet parrots can recognize the images on a tablet as another
       | parrot that they are interacting with in real-time.
        
         | a1369209993 wrote:
         | Why wouldn't they? Humans can recognize black and white images
         | on a 1960s-era videophone prototype as another human they are
         | interacting with in real-time, and it's not like parrots have
         | any significant difficulty recognizing other parrots in
         | general.
        
           | TomWhitwell wrote:
           | "Birds don't see well on the old-fashioned CRT screens--their
           | flicker fusion rate is much faster than ours" https://news.no
           | rtheastern.edu/2023/04/28/magazine/cockatoo-p...
        
           | ceejayoz wrote:
           | Passing the mirror test is pretty rare in the animal world
           | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test). Birds aren't
           | widely good at it. They may have similar challenges in tying
           | a depiction of something to the 3D physical real object.
        
         | rqtwteye wrote:
         | One of our foster dogs would bark and growl at dogs on TV. I am
         | pretty sure she would have interacted with them if the TV dogs
         | would have responded to her.
        
       | astura wrote:
       | This appears to be a different study about parrots making video
       | calls: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35664219
       | 
       | Same researchers though, or at least appears to be.
        
       | andrewstuart wrote:
       | Someone should make "Omegle for Parrots" and let them hang with
       | random parrots from around the world online whenever they feel
       | like it.
        
         | parpfish wrote:
         | tangent:
         | 
         | i remember when chat roulette went viral in ~2010 and it
         | introduced the general public to the 'video chat with random
         | strangers' app concept. It was _everywhere_. My grandparents
         | knew about it.
         | 
         | but now whenever people talk about 'video chat with random
         | strangers' they always use omegle as the reference point. I
         | don't recall it ever breaking into the public consciousness.
         | 
         | did everybody forget chatroulette? what happened?
        
           | mikestew wrote:
           | _did everybody forget chatroulette?_
           | 
           | After the first couple of penis shots, I'm sure ChatRoulette
           | users have done everything they can to forget ChatRoulette.
           | 
           | Having never used it, did Omegle somehow avoid this fate? If
           | so, how?
        
             | bagels wrote:
             | No, it did not. It shut down due to accusations of not
             | doing enough to police users.
        
             | andrewstuart wrote:
             | Omegle had the same problem.
             | 
             | I'm pretty sure it would be the same problem on a parrot
             | oriented anonymous random video chat network.
        
           | spondylosaurus wrote:
           | Omegle had text chat, too, which I would guess had a lot more
           | users than the video chat (= more name recognition overall).
           | Plus it's easier to say and type :P
        
       | abruzzi wrote:
       | Kind of off topic, but my pet parrot (a Mitred Conure) gets off-
       | the-hook loud whenever I try to watch Hitchcock's The Birds. The
       | movie has a lot of bird noises (and strangely enough an
       | electronic music score thats not really audible as a score--it
       | just makes the squawks denser) but I don't know if he's trying to
       | engage or mimicking.
        
         | yareally wrote:
         | My parrots (Green Cheek and a Budgie) can't stand hearing other
         | bird calls. Freaks them out (even the ones in the console/pc
         | version of WingSpan[0]). A majority of bird calls in the wild
         | are territorial and it seems to freak them out the most in the
         | Spring when their hormones are at their highest, so it's likely
         | related.
         | 
         | I haven't thought too far into it, but I imagine they freak out
         | more when it's a hawk/falcon call than a songbird.
         | 
         | [0] https://stonemaiergames.com/games/wingspan/
        
       | 1-6 wrote:
       | I'm curious now, can a parrot tell the difference between a real
       | parrot and an AI generated one?
        
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