The Telepresent Animal

Do we know our pets, our food animals and zoo animals better now that we can monitor them remotely, at any time we want? When the experience is enhanced with the availability of internet-enabled devices, games and communication tools, will we have closer relationships with them?

[telepresent-animal]

From the perspective of your dog, you have not left, you have merely transformed into a treat-tossing robot. “Furbo is an all-in-one dog sitter that includes a camera, treat popper, barking alerts, night vision, and more!”

[telepresent-animal]

This is the telepresent animal we’ve been waiting for - one that is always on camera, in constant action and danger, yet never dying or even sleeping. This beautiful buck is on live webcam inside of the Grand Theft Auto game. He is “playing” as a character, designed by New Media Artist Brett Watanabe and set free inside the virtual space. With his interesting mix of artificial intelligence and deer-like qualities, he holds my attention and keeps me coming back to watch this perverse webcam inside a video game. Visit the San Andreas Webcam, you’ll see.

[weloveshortvideos]

[traderjoestars]

@warmbun

[warmbun]

I LOVE THIS VIDEO SO MUCH

[networkedanimals]

Heroic Rats Sniff Out Landmines In Africa, Could Save 1,000s Of People Worldwide

Bomb-sniffing rats could save thousands around the world from death and dismemberment every year. APOPO, a Belgian NGO that has been training giant African pouched rats to detect landmines, thinks it can make this dream a reality. In operation since 1997, their rats can effectively search 200 square meters in 20 minutes, versus the 25 operational hours it would take humans with mine detectors.

Rats trained in bomb-sniffing can do the work of one human+detector 75 times faster.

[telepresent-animal]

This is what a funeral for robots looks like. In Japan they do these for their dead pet Sony Aibo robot dogs. Read more about it here.

[wolfliving]

*It’s Chinese, it’s from Xiaomi, and your cat can’t have it.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/01/xiaomi-yi-action-camera/

(…)

it appears that the device can be strapped to anything — even a cat?! — but some kind of protective case would be useful, we think.

Xiaomi’s other products — which include an air purifier, and blood test device — can be remotely controlled via apps, and that’s also the case for the Yi Action Camera.

Don’t hold your breath on the prospect of seeing this product surface outside of China — that’s a common refrain for Xiaomi products, but particularly true in this case.

Xiaomi’s rationale for making an action camera isn’t necessarily to ‘clone’ GoPro — in the same way that it doesn’t clone Apple — it’s because it is essentially an internet-of-things company, as Stratechery writer Ben Thompson recently noted.

Beyond just developing quality smartphones at strikingly affordable prices, Xiaomi is developing a network of hardware which also connects with its software, its MIUI version of Android, and its dedicated services, such as an iMessage variant and e-commerce store. If Xiaomi can provide all of your hardware needs, for instance, then clearly its software and services will play an important part in your daily life.

Hardware companies make their money from selling devices, but, with tight margins and a growing ecosystem of hardware partners, Xiaomi does things differently. International VP Hugo Barra recently told TechCrunch about some strategies that keep its prices so low, but the company’s larger goal is also to monetize via those services so keeping device pricing competitive is essential to getting people into its ecosystem.

[sizvideos]

[new-aesthetic]

(via Google sending its Street View cameras to the desert… on camels - News - Gadgets and Tech - The Independent)

[telepresent-animal]

In the dessert, the Google camera car is a camel.

[mote078]

Amy Youngs, Please Don’t Tap on the Glass.

In this installation, Youngs presents a live video stream from her project The Museum For Insects, currently on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts. Visit the museum online at: http://hypernatural.com/museum/visit.html

More about this Project:

Located inside the Peabody Essex Museum,  an insect-sized museum that features artwork specifically created for house crickets. Inside, crickets can interact with hands-on/legs-on exhibits, enjoy food and drink from the café and experience live humans, both through a picture window and through a videophone chat that connects the Museum for Insects to the humans visiting the Peabody Essex Museum. Humans visiting us from the internet can visit our live webcam, and can activate a cricket puppet and electronic chirping instruments located within.

[telepresent-animal]

If an eagle dies in a nest and there is no webcam audience watching, did it happen? Does it matter?

Jon Mooallem tells the story of the EagleCam that caused an incredible citizen action to unfold. While Minnesota Department of Natural Resources thought it best to let nature take its course, the public outcry went all the way to the governor's office. Letting a baby eagle die in the nest, while his two siblings thrived, just looked terrible and had to be stopped. Thanks, one woman wrote, for “not making us suffer watching it die. I’m not up for that learning experience.”

[telepresent-animal]

Robot grouse used by biologists to study the mating behavior of these birds. I wish there was a video of this, as I’d love to see what a fake bird looks like rolling across the ground and how the other birds react. 

[telepresent-animal]

“Could chickens raised in close confinement live more humane lives if they experienced them virtually?” Artist Austin Stewart explores this question in his project, Second Livestock. Utilizing the virtual reality system, Occulus Rift, he creates a system for ”Virtually Free Range" chickens. His project purports to have an animal-centered design in mind and a deep concern for the welfare of livestock animals.

The concept for this work was originally developed while he was a graduate student in the Art and Technology program at the Ohio State University. He has not tested it out on chickens, stating that there could be ethical problems, such as the fact that the chickens cannot consent to the research. Counteracting traditional animal testing protocols, his tests have been carried out on humans instead.

More information in this article in the Ames Tribune "ISU design professor envisions virtual reality lives for farm animals"

And on the Second Livestock website.

[new-aesthetic]

(via Twitter / Eleni_dW: A sign of our times. Makes …)

[lookingthinkingmeetinganimals]

This Could Be the First Animal to Live Entirely Inside a Computer

[telepresent-animal]

Animals are exceptionally complicated things. So complicated, in fact, that we’ve never actually built one ourselves. But the day is fast approaching when we’ll be able to create digital versions of organisms on a computer — from the way they move right through to their behaviors. Here’s how we’ll do it.

[telepresent-animal]

This movie is screen captured from the live webcam of a stage set outdoors in Norway, where it is being broadcast by NRK as Piip-show. 

Watching birds and squirrels on live webcam is most compelling when the feeding station is a miniature bar scene. For the art museum version of this concept of "live animal webcam set in human worlds", visit The Museum for Insects. 

[animals-riding-animals]

monkeys riding boar

[telepresent-animal]

Dolphin whistle instantly translated by computer. Perhaps showing the beginning of machine-learning techniques that can help us understand animals?