Orangutans To Skype Between Zoos With iPads 149
MrSeb writes "For the last six months, orangutans — those great, hairy, orange apes that go 'ook' a lot — at Milwaukee Zoo have been playing games and watching videos on Apple's iPad, but now their keepers and the charity Orangutan Outreach want to go one step further and enable ape-to-ape video chat via Skype or FaceTime. 'The orangutans loved seeing videos of themselves — so there is a little vanity going on — and they like seeing videos of the orangutans who are in the other end of the enclosure,' Richard Zimmerman of Orangutan Outreach said. 'So if we incorporate cameras, they can watch each other.' And thus the idea of WiFi video chat between orangutans — and eventually between zoos — was born. It might seem like folly, but putting (ruggedized!) iPads into the hands of apes could really revolutionize our understanding of great ape behavior."
As much as I hate all things Apple (Score:4, Informative)
I must admit that the IPAD has been a boon to the low-functioning autistic community. If human beings without speech can use the IPAD to talk, why not apes?
To my downmodder... (Score:5, Informative)
Please read the following part of the parent post out loud and tell me it isn't even a tiny bit ambiguous.
It is a relatively simple process to program apps and change the icons of apps to lexigrams geared towards apes, and I find the idea of giving apes like Kanzi, as well as other apes that have worked extensively with primatologists, exposure to such technology as worthy enough to hold sufficient merit.
Much like learning a foreign language, if we teach all these exposed and inclined apes the same 'words' it isn't a huge leap to believe that in a few generations it could manifest itself as something that is passed on within the confines of each society of apes from generation to generation.
Even across species Kanzi the Bonobo picked up some ASL from watching videos of Koko the Gorilla. With a little determination on our part, this could be the start of something much greater.
Humans came up the hard way, but that doesn't mean that apes have to go that route.
Just to clarify, paragraphs above include:
- proposal for development of software, GUI and an alphabet aimed at apes.
- describing equipping apes with 21st century entertainment technology as "worthy enough to hold sufficient merit".
- inventing an "ape Esperanto", teaching it to apes - hoping it will catch on as their Lingua Simia,
- the following line: "Kanzi the Bonobo picked up some ASL from watching videos of Koko the Gorilla".
- and finally, suggestion that apes SHOULD aim for some not clearly defined position (Evolutionary? Cultural? Civilizational? Consumerist? Political?...) which is currently being occupied by humans.