Friday, December 16, 2011

Playing with Pigs


Playing with Pigs: Pig Chase from Utrecht School of the Arts on Vimeo.


I want this game. A company in the Netherlands is working on an iPad app that will let people interact remotely with pigs on a farm. Apparently pigs like to interact with bright balls of light. This app creates bright spheres of colored light on a panel in a pig sty. The pig touches the light with his snout, which scores a point. The number of touches racks up a score, and at the end of the game the high scores get displayed on the iPad. I'm not sure if the human is training the pig to touch the screen, or if the pig is training the human to play longer with an iPad. Either way, it looks like a lot more fun than Angry Birds.

Here's the web site for the video:

Playing With Pigs

And the other amazing thing is that we already have a "pig" label on the blog. Have we really talked about pigs here before?

And for Jesse, a hamster:




And here's one from Roy with ants...

11 comments:

Dinah said...

Wait, you text me this morning asking where you can buy a swimsuit (in December) and now I have to embed your piggy video for you?

jesse said...

If they only had a hamster or chinchilla app...

ClinkShrink said...

Dinah: I'm so proud of you!! You learned to embed. Seems like only last week you needed help with the blog template. Oh wait, it WAS last week...

Jesse: I put up a hamster for you.

jesse said...

NO, no, Clink, the hamster is for you. I need a chinchilla. They are similar, but quite different. Don't get me started talking about chinchillas...

jesse said...

But that little guy is SO cute!

Jane said...

Jesse...you own a chinchilla! Those are the cutest little guys. How did you get one? Aren't they incredibly expensive and difficult to maintain?

My brother owns flying squirrels. But they were really hard to obtain. Cutest little guys.

Roy said...

and I added a bearded dragon lizard lickin' flies

jesse said...

@Jane, actually I don't have one right now but was co-caretaker of the little guy in my avatar. They are not difficult at all, not expensive, but do require knowledge and have special requirements. For instance, they get stressed if you try to travel with them. They need out-of-cage excercise most every day. They require patience to win their trust. They bond very closely with people, and do best in bonded pairs, although they can be kept singly if given enough attention.

There are a number of excellent books, esp. those by Pavia, Bartl, Alderton, and Vanderlip. Well worth reading!

They are wonderful pets, that's for sure.

PDFdoc said...

At home, we have one guinea pig (the last of four), 2 cats, 5 dogs, and 4 horses. I'm pretty sure that the horses would touch a bright light - they really are very curious. Perhaps I could put one of those screens in my barn, and combine monitoring the horses with play time? Oh wait, I don't have play time. Rodent wise, I've always loved guinea pigs because they talk to you (it's OK, antipsychotics on board). If I forget to feed the GP when the kids are away (the GP is in the teen-boy-cave upstairs), she calls for me at feeding time. Very sweet. Of course, one of the dogs (the border collie with an IQ double mine) simply brings me the food or water dish when there is an issue.

Sunny CA said...

Have you ever seen a human "play" with a dog by shining a laser in various places on the ground, then moving it? The human laughs and the dog is tormented.

This pig game strikes me as one more way for humans to torment animals. I do not think iPad games ought to be at the expense of live animals.

Sean Paul said...

This is a much more sanitary way to play with animals. Perhaps this could be a good CBT exercise for phobias or OCD.