‘Alexa’ Engineer Develops App That Translates Your Cats Meows

Have you ever looked at your cat and wondered what on earth is going on in their head?

You’re in luck, as a former Alexa engineer is working on an app that could translate your cats meows into something understandable.

It’s called MeowTalk, and the app will record the sound your cat is making and then using AI, will attempt to identify what they want.

You can also help by labelling the translation, creating a database for the AI software to learn from, if you happen to know what a particular noise from your moggy means.

It’s complicated further because research suggests that cats do not share a language, instead tailoring their noises and responses to their owner, and some are more vocal than others,

The app’s vocabulary currently features 13 phrases in the app’s including: “Feed me!”, “I’m angry!” and “Leave me alone!”. All of the essentials, then.

 The aim is for the app to become more accurate, the more you use it and it starts to recognise your individual cat’s style.

The eventual hope would be to develop a translating collar, that would instantly translate the cat’s meow.

“I think this is especially important now because, with all the social distancing that’s happening, you have people that are confined at home with … a significant other – this feline. This will enable them to communicate with their cat, or at least understand their cat’s intent, and build a very important connection.” says designer, Javier Sanchez.

Cat behaviourist Anita Kelsey thinks it’s all a bit far fetched. “We will probably never be able to convert a cat’s miaow into human words. All we can do is have fun thinking about what they might be saying from our own human perspective. The app seems like fun and there’s no harm in having fun with your cat.”

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