Bowlingual Voice is barking mad!

Tuesday 21 July

In a world of crazy gadgets, the Bowlingual Voice is nuttier than a squirrel's larder

I’ve seen some crazy gadgets in my time (robot jellyfish, modular robots), but this one takes the bicsuit… the dog biscuit. The Bowlingual Voice, apparently, analyses the acoustics of a dog’s bark and translates the results into a human voice. Hmm. Call me sceptical…

Made by Japanese (who else?) toymaker Takara Tomy, the Bowlingual Voice focuses on six emotions that your pooch experiences, such as frustration (presumably at not being let outside to do his business) and sadness. There are also a whole bunch of spoken phrases stored in the Bowlingual Voice, such as “play with me”.

Okay, bear with me on this. There is some tech involved. The Bowlingual Voice has a microphone which is placed around Fido’s neck, and a handheld operating unit. When your canine companion barks, the mic picks up the tone of the growl, sends the data to the handheld device and “translates” what the dog is “saying”.

The Bowlingual Voice is only on sale in Japan at the moment, and costs around £129. Depending on whether it’s a success (and what the dog’s are demanding!), it may or may not pop up on these shores.