Wanna Talk to a bonobo? There’s an App for that

Posted April 12, 2012 by Johnny2x in Science

Thank the gods! It’s about fracking time! I have so many questions I need answers to.

I think the RoboBonobo robot might not be a good idea however. It kinda looks like someone cut the head off of one of their buddies and stapled it to a robot.

App would allow humans to communicate with bonobos

The seven bonobos living at the Bonobo Hope Great Ape Trust Sanctuary in Des Moines, Iowa, are a pretty smart bunch of apes. Among other things, they have a vocabulary of about 400 words – they don’t speak those words, but instead associate the meanings of them with symbols known as lexigrams. Using large wall-mounted touchscreen displays, they are able to communicate with humans by touching the appropriate lexigrams on those displays. Now, the sanctuary wants to develop an app that could be used on mobile versions of the wall screens, so tablet-wielding bonobos could communicate from wherever they happen to be.

One of the Bonobo Chat app’s more interesting features would be its ability to act as a sort of human-ape translator. People could simply speak into their device in English, at which point the app would select lexigrams corresponding to their words, and display those on the screen of the selected bonobo’s device. Conversely, once an ape had poked out a series of lexigrams on their screen, a corresponding spoken message would be played back by the human’s device. We’re not talking about complex sentences, obviously, but two-way conversations nonetheless.

more of the story over here at gizmag.com

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About the Author

Johnny2x

John created the HowsYourRobot.com just because he cares about each and everyone of you. He likes science, technology, movies, and music. He also likes long walks in the park but only at night and in most dangerous park he can find AND he discovered the internet while playing in his back yard as a child. Some of this is true and some of it is not.