Applying Technology to Find Out What “Woof” Really Means

Have you ever wonder what your dog is really saying? There’s lots of research going on to find out what dogs really think, and technology’s been a key tool.

Some doggy thoughts are pretty simple to figure out – such as when Sheena rings the bell hanging from the back door to let you know she wants out or when Ruger sits next to the pantry door whining to let you know he is ready for dinner – other thoughts and wishes may require some clarification.

For example, wouldn’t it be great if your dog could tell you what it is he’s actually scared of, so you could either avoid or do something about it? Or why she always barks at the neighbors across the street? (I really want to know the answer to this one.)

The Nordic Society for Invention and Discovery (NSID), a Scandinavian professional group working on new applications for technology, is working on a prototype of a product called No More Woof. No More Woof consists of headset with EEG sensors and a speaker that you place on the dog’s head. The sensors search for specific brain waves for thoughts such as “Who is that?” and transmit those brainwaves to a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) microcomputer in the headset.

The BCI collects, analyzes, and translates the brain waves into English and then broadcasts those thoughts through the headset’s speaker. NSID expects to eventually have No More Woof outputs in French, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. 

The implications of this technology could be pretty amazing, not only for our companion dogs, but also for working dogs. How would this type of technology application improve what bomb sniffing dogs, assistance dogs, and police dogs?

And what if the product could be reconfigured for humans, and translate our thoughts into dog language? Creating “…a machine that translates human thoughts into dog language, a task that seems quite a challenge, to put it mildly,” claims NSID.