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RoboBonobo: A Project To Outfit Apes With Tablets and Telepresence Bots
MrSeb writes "Ken Schweller, a computer scientist and psychologist, and also the chairman of the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, has a vision: He wants to put wireless Android tablets in the hands of bonobo apes. The Great Ape Trust Sanctuary is home to seven bonobos, including the world-famous Kanzi, and two orangutans. So far the Sanctuary has focused almost exclusively on language, with the bonobos and their keepers communicating through lexigrams on a touch-screen TV. Now Schweller wants to go one step further and outfit the bonobos with wireless tablets running custom Bonobo Chat software, allowing the apes to communicate with their keepers (and other bonobos!) from anywhere in the Sanctuary, and to remotely control devices such as vending machines, doors, and the RoboBonobo. If all this wasn't weird (cool?) enough, the RoboBonobo is even outfitted with a water cannon (so the telepresent apes can play "chase games" with humans) and Schweller is trying to fund the whole thing with Kickstarter. If you're a big fan of apes (or Darwinism), be sure to donate."
They'll have the telepresence robot hacked into a human hunting drone in no time.
Apple already tried this in USA. Even got the monosyllabic monkeys to pay for their own hardware.
Planet of the Bonobos. If they have wireless tabs, then one clever one will find a way to take control of a Predator. What then humans? It's going to be World War 3, between Bonobos and Robot Overlords with us stuck in the middle trying to stick flowers into their barrels. Wang Weilin will be squished.
If they do use GNOME, will they be using Bonobo?
Isn't this how it started?
Knowing Bonobos, this project will also have to involve some kind of teledildonics, right?
I'm all for this project.. you know.. for science!
If you're a big fan of apes (or Darwinism), be sure to donate.
How do the apes feel about this?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The Robo-Bonobo-Hobo!!!! with his Android sidekick and his ability to tell killer jokes with sign language!!!
When I saw that "telepresence" thing, I got flashbacks to that part in "Faces of Death" where they ate the monkey brains... do no want.
with Apple iPads. Android is just a runner up.
Tablets to apes.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
So now as the real life version of Planet of the Apes unfolds, Caesar will not only be smart and pissed, he'll look like Jimmy Durante and be hornier than Warren Beatty?
David Brin must be openly grinning over this.
#SickNotWeak
Bonobos? I hope they didn't forget to set the pr0n filter, or available bandwidth will never be enough....
And keep them from posting on youtube!!!!
bickerdyke
Agreed. It feels like there's been a big shift in visitor quality and attitude, over time.
Get your filthy paws off my Android you stinking ape!
Monkeys are bad, m'kay?
...I suppose this is following Apple's similar success with the iPad and lemmings?
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
If you replace 'the bonobos' with 'management' and make other, similar simple changes to the summary, you'd get a fairly accurate description of the office where I work.
It's uncanny, I tell you. I wonder if those security cameras are something other than what they seem?
Is this just another evil wireless plot to dumb down communications from more species of primates? Texting doesn't even work well for humans.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
I'm sure the apes are not DAUs, this category is still occupied by humans...
Digital monkeys flinging digital poo at us.
Oh well. It would still be better than Trade Chat in World of Warcraft.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
They use the idea of giving monkeys smartphones to drum up funding for their research, and then when the smartphones don't actually help anything they take them from the monkeys to use themselves.
Look up bonobos. Porn on the internet is about to double.
They'll declare war on the lasersharks.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
~ (bong bong) Ook Eeek Ook AH AH!
~ (bing bing) Get.your.stinking.paws.off.me.you.damned.dirty.ape. OK?
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Once a new species gets started using Android, it's really hard to switch them over to Windows. This doesn't bode well for MS's survival over the next million years or so.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
I'm technically a great ape. Can I have a tablet and telepresence bot, please?
Lolz if meant as humor, and proof of my assertion if not.
Ah. Yep, it'll be on the net. Wait till those crafty apes figure out ALL the places on a human body that the water cannon might fit.