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Sounds like you need a cat door that unlocks only when the cat isn't carrying anything.

I'd imagine that this thing will be roughly as cat-resistant as your keyboard.

All of these "gifts" are trivially mitigated with a Flo Control Device, if you do not want them.

http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Watch/flo_watch. htm

Wow!!! I'm not sure what to say except congrads on the coolest geek project on the planet. I wish I had some mod points to throw at you. I have been dreaming of the biometric house system, with automatic garden for years but you made your project!

Kowtow, Kowtow

Dave

Actually, our callico is fond of giving us Rabbit Asses. Never the front half of bunny... always, and only the ass.

Our fat one brings home frogs, toads, and slugs. The frogs and toads... he catches. "Honey... do you feel like we're being watched?" "Oh #$% there's a frog under the TV!" The slugs... appear to run him down and catch *him*.

Our grey one brings home birds and chipmonks, and the occasional mouse/mole.

Our deaf one doesn't bring home anything, but damn he sure tries. He *does* do a good job of killing any live things that the others release.

All of these "gifts" are trivially mitigated with a Flo Control Device, if you do not want them.
http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Watch/flo_watch. htm

I think you were talking about Flo-Watch:

http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Watch/flo_watch. htm

It recognizes if the cat is bringing in something that it caught from outside.

What's more interesting is a system I saw years ago that was supposed to recognize whether a cat was carrying something in its mouth (like a mouse) by looking at its profile. No more "presents" left for you to step on when you get out of bed in the morning.

You mean Flo control is patented? (See picture on page 2, ie. click next)

Yes! I see all of this stuff about monster technology and all the rest, and I'm realizing that even though I'm a nerd who has 5 computers in my living room, I've spent a lot of time getting as much of that stuff out of my house, or at least as unobtrusive, as possible. And those five computers are as hidden as I can make them (three are laptops, one is a small server in my stereo cabinet, the display for the desktop is an LCD in a bookshelf with a pull-out drawer for the keyboard and mouse). I want much of my furniture, especially anything holding computers or whatnot, to be fold away and to have blank faces when it's closed (I've already built myself such a workbench, it's just a large cabinet in my livingroom when I'm not working on stuff).

Lots of shelves/cabinets and lots of storage, I've got gobs of projects and parts for projects, and I want to keep them organized and close to my life, but I don't want to have to have separate spaces for entertaining and for living, 'cause that's just spending money on half-used space. I haven't actually lived in or used a house with these amenities, but since a lot of projects seem to happen on the floor anyway, I think I'd like hatches or similar floor storage.

However, no unnecessary nooks or hallways or connectors, I want my rooms rectangular, easy to clean, with simple openings between spaces. If the climate demands it (and most do), I like to compartmentalize the house for heating and cooling (and maybe here's your application for technology, a centralized place that I can say "heat the living room, let the dining room and bedroom sit at 50 degrees"), but I don't buy into this crap that some architects push about hallways to provide transition areas in between parts of the house. Make it a door or an opening with a curtain and be done with it.

I don't need a large kitchen, but I want prep room on both sides of the stove, and a veggie sink as well as a clean-up sink. Whatever the entrance to the house, I want a little space, maybe just a few feet of hall, with shelves for shoes by the front door.

Technology-wise, the only really geeky thing I want is a smarter cat door (Yes, I know about Flo Control, but I'd settle for "after dark, opens from the inside only"). I want room to run cables under the floor and through walls, as I'm sick of slap-dash phone/cable installations run under the siding around the outside of the house, and I want lots of power outlets, but I'm less concerned with built-in lights or any fancy technology to switch them; I'm fine with having desk lamps and similar per-application lamps. Don't build crap into the house, as it'll only be made obsolete (and this especially applies to lighting technologies right now). If you do have built in lights, they should be able to make that room like daylight; my alarm clock is currently a big bank of daylight balanced flourescents, and when that lights up the room I'm happy, even in the doldrums of the rainy season.

I want good fitting doors, double-paned glass, good insulation (for conventional construction types, I'm interested in the folks doing 2x6 studs at 19.whatever centers, more room for insulation, cheaper materials costs). Yes, I know that a house needs to breathe, but let's make that a specific function of the design, not a byproduct of skimping on materials.

And, if I go specific to my particular needs, parking for a bunch of bicycles out of the elements, including long ones (tandem/recumbent).

Remote-control sounds fine, but automatically? Do we have software capable of reliably distingushing between a civilian and an enemy combatant (at least as well as a human soldier can, anyway...)?

Well, no, but that wouldn't be necessary. I'm sure the robots would use some form of Identification Friend or Foe [IFF] method. I'm not saying those arne't foolproof but that doesn't really require any type of automatic target recognition (ATR) or image recognition software.

Note, I'm not saying that IFF makes these robots a great idea. I'm just pointing out that the idea isn't completely idiotic.

GMD

And for those of you who are sick of getting up to open the door for your feline friend, you'll be happy to know that problem has been solved as well.

Or get yourself one of these.

Perhaps combining a computer with image recognition software and a scanner could be used. The scanner could be contained in a box with a hole just big enough for a hand and fore-arm. The image recognition software could be trained to recognize a unique hand shadow made by the 5 or 9 year old, which even if the 8 year old learned the gesture, his hand shadow would hopefully by sufficiently different to disallow his access. This system could be rekeyed frequently to allow for growth, 'cracked' keys, etc.

Here is a similar system applied to controlling a cat door. LINK

Joe

Among these was a cat flap connected to an atomic bomb in space. The device was fitted with a colour sensor, designed to admit his ginger cat but block the passage of a neighbour's black moggie

Hmm. Looks Like This Company is Infringing on a patent :)

Seems like a pretty cool set up, right? Not quite.. start flipping through the timeline archives this guy has saved up (the "flo watch" button). As you click through, note how many times it seems like the cat would be permitted to enter, yet it comes up not letting him through the door. this day was a particularily bad day for the system. We, as humans, would have positively identified the cat properly. Computers, obviously, can't do that yet with any high accuracy.

Now granted "law enforcement" versions are going to be a wee bit more sophisticated, but if the cell phone version has even half the errors this cat detector does, are we ever gonna be able to put any faith into this technology?

Seems like a pretty cool set up, right? Not quite.. start flipping through the timeline archives this guy has saved up (the "flo watch" button). As you click through, note how many times it seems like the cat would be permitted to enter, yet it comes up not letting him through the door. this day was a particularily bad day for the system. We, as humans, would have positively identified the cat properly. Computers, obviously, can't do that yet with any high accuracy.

Now granted "law enforcement" versions are going to be a wee bit more sophisticated, but if the cell phone version has even half the errors this cat detector does, are we ever gonna be able to put any faith into this technology?

I realize this is a duplicate, but since those posts are kind of off topic and I didn't seem to see anyone else mention it in the earlier thread...

Has anyone else noticed that the system seems flawed. Seeing as how this was obviously Squirrel...

It seems like there are alot of false alarms with the system even so much that the previous link sems to have denied entry to a cat that was leaving :)

I think the question has to be, how can we improve image recognition to be more accurate???

Actually, these problems seem to be apparent with most voice recognition systems as well.

Just an observation...I could be wrong :)

I realize this is a duplicate, but since those posts are kind of off topic and I didn't seem to see anyone else mention it in the earlier thread...

Has anyone else noticed that the system seems flawed. Seeing as how this was obviously Squirrel...

It seems like there are alot of false alarms with the system even so much that the previous link sems to have denied entry to a cat that was leaving :)

I think the question has to be, how can we improve image recognition to be more accurate???

Actually, these problems seem to be apparent with most voice recognition systems as well.

Just an observation...I could be wrong :)

Actually, you're wrong. From the webpage: New: our image recognition algorithm can now determine which of the two cats is entering.

If you're looking for pictures where it actually kept out unwanted animals, there' s a bird on 01/10: http://www.quantumpicture.com/watchpic/day0110.htm

But pretty neat. And the site has withstood Slashdot somehow - something that bigger sites fail on regularly.

It seems to be pretty good at blocking other animals (skunks, etc...), but what about another cat?

As noted on their index page, their software has a new feature: "our image recognition algorithm can now determine which of the two cats is entering.".

You can even watch it in real time. The pictures will have a label telling the name of the cat that was allowed access.

Cute :-).

It seems to be pretty good at blocking other animals (skunks, etc...), but what about another cat?

As noted on their index page, their software has a new feature: "our image recognition algorithm can now determine which of the two cats is entering.".

You can even watch it in real time. The pictures will have a label telling the name of the cat that was allowed access.

Cute :-).