Slashdot Mirror
First Cell Phone for Dogs
revelCyllufyalP writes "A company called PetsMobility has come out with PetCell, the first cell phone for dogs. The phone will allow users to call their dogs in case the dog gets away and also includes a GPS tracking device if the dog doesn't respond to the call. In addition, the PetCell will feature GeoFence, which will alert owners whenever their dogs wander outside a prescribed area. Will the PetCell actually prove useful to dog owners or is it just another cheap gimmick?"
I have a feeling this will cost a pretty penny, of course that won't stop most people that are insecure enough that they would feel they need this to ensure their dog doesn't run away (crazy idea, why not look after your dog responsibly?).
That's why I'm a cat person. Kitty goes out, Kitty comes back in. She ain't dumb, she knows where her food dish is.
Gives a whole new meaning to "calling the dog."
http://www.fido.ca/
another worthless widget to consume!
Please, go fulfill the American Dream (TM) and buy one today!
signatures are for fools with hands
Fine for those serious pet owners who would die if their pet ran away, but it will be a total mess if people just purchase these things and let their dogs run loose just because they can track them.
Dvorak on Doomtech
... an easier way of callin your b*tches!
fo shizzle...
My dog can pretty much chew through anything it wants. I am not sure I want him chewing on something with a battery inside. If I attach this cell to him, he will think it is his, and think he is allowed to chew on it.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Do they have an anti-face-biting-off attachment for rottweilers?
signatures are for fools with hands
I could be wrong but $350 to $400 doesn't sound too much like a cheap gimmick.
Quid, me anxius sum?
"A company called PetsMobility has come out with PetCell, the first cell phone for dogs. The phone will allow users to call their dogs in case the dog gets away and also includes a GPS tracking device if the dog doesn't respond to the call."
You know, just on the one-in-a-million chance your dog either doesn't answer the phone at all or does answer it but can't quite make out the street signs so he can tell you where he is.
I saved a bundle my just giving my dog a quarter. Last time he got lost he found a payphone and asked me to come pick him up. It worked out well enough, but I'm also considering getting him one of those Franklin translating electronic phrasebooks, in case he gets lost in the Spanish-speaking area of town and needs to ask for directions.
"Will the PetCell actually prove useful to dog owners or is it just another cheap gimmick?"
Gosh, that's a real stumper.
A thinly disguised means of putting a GPS leash on your kids... My guess is the pet angle just makes it look more friendly/gets more press, whereas the paranoid parent market will be the real revenue generator.
bleurk. Must be nice to be treated like a parolee by your parents... really inculcates that sense of responsibility. Ah well, you get the kids you deserve--and then we all deal with the consequences.
Next thing you know the government will use these things to tax our dogs. Take it outside your backyard, pay a walk tax.
This would be useful for a girlfriend, lets see:
- "The phone will allow users to call their girlfriend in case the girlfriend gets away", very useful feature!
- "and also includes a GPS tracking device if the girlfriend doesn't respond to the call", very nice, I definately want to check where she is going!
- "In addition, the GirlCell will feature GeoFence, which will alert owners whenever their girlfriends wander outside a prescribed area.", also very useful. No more going to shopping/partying to a nearby city without my knowledge.
*answers his cell phone*
What boy? There's trouble at the well? Little timmy's stuck?
GOOD BOY! I'll be there right away!
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
Gimmick, yes; cheap, no.
Will the PetCell actually prove useful to dog owners or is it just another cheap gimmick?
Sounds like just another expensive gimmick to me...
In soviet Russia, dogs call you!
Well, you have to call it so that it can read the GPS display back to you.
Duh.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
The GPS and GeoFence features sound like they'd be much more useful to the pet owner than the cell phone capabilities. What, exactly, are pet owners going do tell their dog over the phone? "Sit?" "Stay?" And how will the dog respond to a disembodied voice that seems to be coming from behind its head?
That's why this seems like a giant gimmick to me. If it weren't a gimmick, and were actually useful, the designers would have ditched the cell phone capability as a very expensive add on and just marketed it based on the dog-tracking capabilities. This will probably be bought by those pathetic dog owners who make ridiculous outfits for their pets to wear and visit pet psychologists when Fido barks twice more this week than he did last week.
When you call a dog it comes to you because it hears your voice coming from the direction you want it to go. So how is the animal supposed to understand where you are calling it to when your voice is coming from a speaker beside its ear?
From the article (italics are mine)
"Sturdy and slobber-resistant, the PetCell isn't just for dogs. PetsMobility's parent company, On4 Communications, is simultaneously rolling out models for kids, the elderly and outdoor sports fanatics who enjoy snowboarding and kayaking."
http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
OK, dis me if you want but I happen to have a $1000 dog. Unusual purebreds come high. When he gets nervous or excited, he can scale a 6-foot fence. I'll likely wait 'till the price drops a bit but it would be a valuable service to know if he leaves the area and to be able to go out and positively track him down. The "call your dog" feature seem to me to be a subset of the other necessary functions. To call and get GPS location, you need full-bore cell functionality anyway. Hey, maybe next they will add a camera and I can see where he is.
Profanity - The sign of a small mind trying to express itself.
...when someone's dog is run over because their owner calls on one of these gadgets and the dog is distracted. I mean most humans would be confused if a voice started coming out of some place on their body. I can just picture one of my dogs cocking his head from side to side in confusion.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
.. So we deveice being mentioned is NOT the first one.
http://www.pointersolutions.com/eng/hunting.htm
My dad bought one for his dog last summer.
it's based on benefon esc gps-enabled mobile phone,
and has been on market for couple of years now.
the kit contains two phones, one wiith full phone functionality ( for the hunter ) and one without keyboard and display ( for the dog ).
the hunter can see where the for is going from his map display, and can also call a call and listen if the dog is barking.
"Or get several and set up a wireless mesh network using all the neighborhood strays!" ... and call it Fidonet.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
My pet maltese will happily "sit", "speak", (lay) "down" and "roll over" whenever my girlfriend calls and I set my phone on speakerphone ('crappy' GSM combined with uberscreech of a small speaker).
;)
It may be true in general, but there's exceptions as always.
That said, she also looks oddly at the phone and will savagely attack it if I let it go on for too long
This device seems more designed for tracking people than animals. If I was marketing the device, I'd sell it as a security device for children/memory impaired adults. The value of tracking is higher, and the wearer is more likely to respond to voice commands.
It didn't say if the phone is two-way so the responder could respond--but I guess it would be useful to be able to hear the background. I wonder if there is a "stealth" mode, where the owner can hear what's going on in the background, but the wearer doesn't hear any ringing or other noises---kind of scary.
I could also it be useful in an auto--I wonder if the GPS is good enough to find your car in a parking lot--uncovered of course. Presumably, all the auto theives/chop shops have learned to put stolen cars in covered building, but the voice listen capability might be useful--hey you could hear your car being chopped up until the very end.
How about selecting a ring tone for your dog?
"Runaway" by Dell Shannon?
"Walkin' the Dog" by Rufus Thomas?
"Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thornton?
"The Dogs of War" by Pink Floyd?
A Snoop Dog medley?
"How Much Is That Doggie In The Window", by Petula Clark?
The possibilities are endless.
...and do you have any idea which parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are passing through your body right this second? More often than not, at vastly higher radiated power levels than any cellphone is capable.
Find yourself a spec-an and plug it in some time.
Brain from Inspector Gadget had one of these years ago.
if you're trying to impress me, you've failed. harumph.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
Reh roh?
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
This is very useful... Sometimes when walking your dog(s) in the forest they will get a scent. At that point it is nearly impossible to stop them, especially if you have a hunting dog. Or how about those people that own "fighting dogs", where you can react very quickly if they break out of garden. Overall a good idea I find... I know I would get it for both of my dogs.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Some neighbor kids brought a kitten to me one rainy day. It was shivering and covered in mud. I brought it in and gave it a warm bath. Before it was even dry it was purring loud enough for my father to hear it over the football game and through two closed doors. I gave it some cat food, and named it "gato" (after John Waynes dog "dog" in Big Jake) he slept on my shoulders I slept face down for 9 years(not straight through). He would come when I called. He "fetched". I put carpeting halfway up the walls and he would run aroud the room like the motorcycle dome of death. He could jump 6 feet straight up from a crouch. Whenever he jarred open the door of my room and ran down the stairs it took him 2 footfalls.
"THUMP-THUMP" A sound everyone in my family dreaded. He hated every other person on the planet and would growl like a demon at them. He had all his shots. I was the only one who could hold him for any reason and would restrain him at the vet. They were all deathly afraid of him but I never let him scratch or bite anyone.
Once I left for a week and on the fifth day he bit my sister on her calf while she was feeding him and nearly punctured the skin through jeans and cowboy boot (she had a bruise for a week).
The next time I went away I took him with me. He got carsick but scooted to his litterbox which I had on the floor in the back and puked into it. He was the best pet I've ever had. Until...
On that trip he went crazy. I had stayed up all night in the hotelroom working on a demo website and was getting ready to take a nap before a job interview. He tore around the room growling and I looked down and my foot was bleeding. He kept growling at me and since he had never done that before I put him in his cat carrier. after an hour he seemed to have calmed down. I let him out. he tore around the room growling again. I couldn't get him back into the carrier and ended up throwing him into the bathroom as he scratched and bit my arms and hands. I called a few vets to see if I could get one to come and tranq my cat. None of the vets that made housecalls were in and they told me to call animal control. I called animal control. They said they would send the guy right over. They sent two rookies that had never handled an animal before. They were joking and laughing until they saw my hands. then they sobered up and got out the cowhide gloves and snare. 30 minutes later we had the beast in the carrier and he had ruined their nice new quarter inch thick gloves. They took him to an animal shelter and wanted to keep him for 10 days. I said they could keep him forever because I couldn't trust him anymore. I went over to the shlter to sign papers and set up the 10 days and impending "sleep" he would be put to and when I opened the front door I could hear him growling out back and everyliving creature in the building was cowering in fear of the personafied evil that used to be my cat.
"He's a real midnight golfer"
A former workmate used to have an Austin Healy 3000 with a $2500 hand rubbed lacquer paint job. He kept it parked in his carport (covered but not enclosed). One day he finds a line of dusty cat footprints across the hood. All the neighbours swore it wasn't their precious kittycats that did the dammage. "Fine" says buddy and hooks an ignition coil to a metal cat dish full of cat food. The next night he hears one very loud meow and no more footprints after that. If you think that's inhumane, his next step would have been to leave out a dish of antifreeze.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
But the first time my dog holds up the line at Starbucks because he's yapping on the phone with his little bitch of a girlfriend, I'm gonna put his ass down...