BELLEVUE, Washington — A new app is trying to decipher what your cat is saying in their daily meows.
A former Amazon engineer who previously worked for Alexa is delving into the age-old mystery of the communication between cats and their owners.
Javier Sanchez, a project manager at tech company Akvelon, has developed the MeowTalk app, which aims to translates a wide range of feline utterances, KING 5 reported.
“It’s not a language. They don’t share words or communicate with each other. Cats never meow at each other out in nature,” Sanchez told the Seattle-based television station.
After listening to the National Public Radio series “The Secret Language of Cats,” Sanchez employed his Alexa experience to tackle cat talk.
Research by Sanchez and his team ascertained that cats have nine basic intentions: “I’m happy,” “I’m hungry” and “I’m in pain” among them.
Users of the app can fine-tune these feline emotions at their whim and decode what it means. But their ultimate goal is to come up with a collar that will translate with a voice response.
The science isn’t perfect. But Sanchez hopes that it will provide better understanding as the pandemic is causing more people to be stranded at home with their pets.
