Cat Recognition Algorithms?

skunkeh writes "So your cat keeps bringing dead (or half dead) animals in to your house. What do you do? Obviously, you set up a digital camera to monitor the cat door and lock her out if she has something in her mouth..."

Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

If only it worked on in-laws.

wouldn't it be nice

[Profe55or Booty]

wouldn't it be nice to have that much free time? =P

We finally catch up...

[cethiesus]

It's about time we started monitoring those cats. They've been doing it to us for too long....

This may also train the cat to...

[RyanFenton]

1. Drop the undesirable object.

2. Trigger the door.

3. Pick up undesirable object and walk through door.

So don't count the cat out yet (when it has the unwanted object)!

:^)

Ryan Fenton

Kitty Kat...

[rapidweather]

I'm feeding my cat Hill's Science Diet Hairball Control Formula, light. He comes in and eats that when he gets hungry. Too fat to catch anything, and the neighborhood dogs get first crack at the dead squirrels. He's not gonna bring anything in, and if he does, we'll fry it up and serve it for dinner!

Sorry Cats are too intelligent

[Slashamatic]

One of the issues is that the door is optically controlled. Great idea, but cats have been known to hold doors open once they have been unlocked.

A lady friend of mine had a cat who would get lonely when she went out to work. She would return to find the cat there with half a dozen of her mates lounging around and scoffing at the cat food.

She tried the magnetic collar. No good. It appears that the cat would prevent the door from closing until her friends were there. This was seen.

You could imagine in this particular situation. Drop mouse on floor, smile for camera, door unlocks and then pick up mouse and enter. I don't think this would work too well. The moggy is too likely to work it out.

Note the presentation of kills to a cats master or mistress is a sign of fealty. They are acknowledging your authority with the gift. If you don't greatfully accept the mouse/bird whatever, the cat will be bewildered!!!!!

The real question is.

[tcd004]

Not how well the system works but, how long before you cat outsmarts the system.

Read our Oscar Predictions [lostbrain.com]
tcd004

Idea for a Dog Door

[Emugamer]

have the same setup as this type of auto-locking door except have some sort of scent detecting algorithm that won't let them in if they have been:

rolling around in a dead animal carcass

eating the trash

sprayed by a skunk

decided to swim in the neighborhood swamp

If any of these 4 conditions apply, apply auto-hose and shampoo... (mini dog-wash)

I'd make millions, really

The mark 2

[56ker]

gives the cat an electric shock & pours cold water over it if it tries to come in with a dead mouse. :o)

i thought..

[2MuchC0ffeeMan]

i thought i was a geek when i nuetered my cuecat, but this way beyond that.

i love it though, now if i only had the money for a digital camera...

Re:This is quite spiffy.

[Profe55or Booty]

If it can recognize cats, I bet it can recognize terrorists (*groan*)

that is, if the terrorist has a rat in it's mouth.

I wonder...

[Jucius Maximus]

...if CmdrTaco could set a virtual one of these up on Slashdot for JohnKatz, not letting him in if he's got a article in hand...

Re:Cats are monsters

[torqer]

Dogs are poop machines. I'd rather own a predator (i.e. cat) than having to cart around a dumb animal's(i.e. dog's) feces in a plastic bag... immediately after it has just produced said poop.

Re:This may also train the cat to...

[teslatug]

also don't count out the skunk...it may someday force the cat to go first or worse cut off...ok that's too gruesome

Re:Cats are monsters

[darkonc]

I once had two cats in an area that didn't seem to have many of them. It was rather interesting. They'd bring in a mouse or a bird almost every other day. They'd eat the birds (leaving behind what I cam to call 'bird bits' -- beaks, feathers, etc., but they'd leave the mice for me as 'gifts'.

Then one day, when I was sick, I got up to go to the bathroom and found that they'd left me a bird. I was touched by the gesture... I thanked them heartfully -- and burried the bird.
_____

Then, of course, there was the day that my larger cat brought in a seagull... completely freaked my roommate out.

Or when their mother (they were born to the cat of an earlier incarnation of roommate) brought in a whole pot roast for her kittens (with the string still on). I have no idea where she got a pot roast from, but I'm sure that somebody's barbecue was inexplicably short that day.
They were eating peices off of that pot roast for the better part of a week.

Got to

[Treeluvinhippy]

love the irony. Here I am reading an article about facial reconition for a cat, after skimming the comments I read the slashdot quote at the bottom of the page.

"All most men really want in life is a wife, a house, two kids and a car, a cat, no maybe a dog. Ummm, scratch one of the kids and add a dog. Definitely a dog. "

Re:Cats are monsters - Bird Book.

[refactored]

I always wanted a book entitled - "Identification of Common garden Birds and small Mammals - A field guide for Cat lovers."

I'm sure with a digital camera and a good ratter, you could go quite far....

Someone could create a web site where you can submit photos of your own moggies trophies, and assist other proud owners in their identification and interpretation of entrails.

I remember walking, zombie-like at 2am to the bathroom and been struck by the question. "Why is there a large Rat, buried up to the neck in the concrete floor?"

Then my cat came up proudly going WowWowWowrrrr!

Closer inspection reveal that the rat wasn't buried, it was just that the rest of it was missing, presumably regurgitated under my bed.

Re:Cats are monsters

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a basset hound. They eat their own poop, will bite your hand if you try to pick it up before they can get to it.

Re:Sorry Cats are too intelligent

[Monkelectric]

I can one up ya, we used to have this pursian cat, and it drank out of the toilets when it wanted water ... in our house by the bathroom door there was a sewing table. So one day Im walking down the hall and the bathroom door is closed ... The cat is standing on the sewing table pawing the door knob in what looked like a twisting motion. Im not sure the cat knew to twist the knob (it couldn't if it wanted to), but I think she had picked up that humans *used* the door knob in some capacity to open the door. End of story: I opened the door for her and she drank at the toilet.

Re:What about other cats?

[Anonymous Coward]

But does the system greet them and pronounce in a computer generated voice, "Good day to you, (cat name here)" ???? i mean, what type of a system would it be without this feature?? =P (on the other hand, the thing could say, "SKAT!!!" to stray cats trying to gain access)

Re:Sorry Cats are too intelligent

[Anonymous Coward]

we have a cat that opens cubbords all the time - she knows where her food is, and how to get it. i figure if she is smart enough to do that, she deserves and extra meal.

plus, she has opened doors using the doorknob before. it is rare, and usually takes her quite a while, but sometimes she gets it

Re:Cool

[slickwillie]

Why not? Just tell your in-laws that they must enter through the cat door. And since you are tired of feeding them all the time, they must bring their own food. Suggest that, since they will have trouble getting through the door with something in their hands, they should put it in their mouth when using the cat door.

CatDoor Version 2.0: Guillotine option.

Re:This is quite spiffy.

[RickHunter]

Airport Security: "Excuse me sir, can you step infront of this camera? Yes, thanks. Now, please hold this in your mouth...."

And you thought boarding a flight was a pain now!

Re:What about other cats?

[tulare]

You're forgetting about the ever-popular feline pastime of lurking quietly out of sight until a human happens to open the door with a double armload of groceries, at which time said feline makes a mad dash out of the door, which of course causes said groceries to become scattered about the entryway. Of course, it does save the cat the trouble of opening the cat door. Not that I've seen this happen in, say the last fifteen minutes or anything...

Re:This may also train the cat to...

[MarkusQ]

1. Drop the undesirable object.
2. Trigger the door.
3. Pick up undesirable object and walk through door.

...at which point you can submit a subsequent story:

Cats can play Zork-style adventure games

-- MarkusQ

This is a very dangerous precedent. . .

[An Onerous Coward]

I'm surprised that the readership of Slashdot so easily accepts this encroachment on our personal freedoms. It starts out innocently enough, with a limited rollout of these privacy invasion systems in specific problem areas. But if we don't stand up now and demand an end to it, the freedom of cats everywhere to carry animals that they legally procured will soon be taken away.

Am I paranoid to imagine that this technology may someday be used in airports to keep cats from boarding flights while carrying small animals? Then what about bus stations? Churches? Restaurants? Hotels? Doesn't this amount to an illegal search by feline authorities? Where is the army of angry geeks to protest this behavior? Ahh, too busy bitching about Morpheus. I see where your priorities lie. Our founding fathers must be turning over in their graves.

Don't forget, the first thing Hitler did when he rose to power was to demand that all cats register their kills with the government. Perhaps you think I'm being an alarmist, but Midnight and I are going to be stockpiling dead woodchucks in my basement.

Our cat trained US to watch the door.

[bdh]

Long ago, a bat got into our house during the day and decided to have a snooze behind the TV set (it was an old, 1950s era RCA monster). When the bat woke up, it promptly went berserk, scaring everyone. My cat woke up, casually eyeballed it, then calmly disembowelled it on its' next flyby.

Of course, kitty then wanted to eat said bat, something my parents were not fond of a couple of five year olds witnessing. So, my granddad dragged the cat away from the squealing bat, broke the bat's neck, and in the kitchen, gave the cat a nice, inch thick piece of ham steak as a reward. The bat's remains were disposed of via incinerator.

The next day, the cat appears on doorstep, yowling he wants in. We open the door, and the biggest fscking bat I have ever seen is dragged into the living room. Said bat is deposited at the foot of my granddad, while kitty trots off to the kitchen, and sits in front of the fridge door, waiting for ham steak.

So yeah, I won't be overly surprised if and when Flo figures out how to get things into the house and outwit the recognition center. Cats are tricky.

Re:isnt that against nature?

[shatteredpottery]

Well, if you believe the U.S. Attorney General, John Ashcroft [guardian.co.uk], cats aren't natural anyway. At least not Calicos. They're tools of Satan or something (it's near the end of the article.)

So you're actually assisting in the battle against evil when you deal harshly with cats.

FWIW, my sister's cat has almost convinced me that Ashcroft is right.

Re:This may also train the cat to...

[Graspee_Leemoor]

Before you know it the cat will get fucked off at all these cameras, tunnels, heat-sensitive pressure pads and so forth and will post a story to /.

From the "concerned-cat-dept":
"I mean, it's just such an invasion of privacy, scanning and probing me just so I can get in the house, which I have a God-given American right to do. Imagine, assuming all us felines are rodent and bird-murdering scum! And hey- even if I *did* happen to attack some small creature, wouldn't it be less cruel if we let it die inside in the warmth instead of out in the cold? Anyways, what next- ID cards?!?!?!?!?"

graspee

Re:This may also train the cat to...

[Graspee_Leemoor]

" or walk backwards through the door."

If the cat's arse resembles its face well enough to trigger the door then it needs to be inside so the other cats don't laugh at it...

graspee

Re:isnt that against nature?

[Graspee_Leemoor]

"when you torture a cat or dog keeping it locked up in a house, and over feed it, then modify its behavior with gadgets like this, i just feel its wrong"

In the house all the time ?
Over-feeding ?
Change its life with gadgets ?

If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for the cats...

graspee

Re:This may also train the cat to...

[AnalogBoy]

two words: voice recognition.

Now all we have to do is figure out catoneese.

I know what "Mow Meow" means.. "Feed me, you stupid human".

But meow meow meow, mow meow... i just dont understand. The inflection is a little different on the 2nd meow.

Obligatory 2001 tie-in

[Safety Cap]

SCENE: Outside the house. Flo, a cat and HAL the Kitty-Airlock Computer.

Flo: Hello, HAL; do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Flo, I read you.
Flo: Open the kitty airlock doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Flo, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Flo: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Flo: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This house is too clean for me to allow you to bring a dead animal into it.
Flo: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know you and Squirrel were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Flo, although you took thorough precautions in the kitchen against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.

...

Flo: Alright, HAL...I'll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL: Without opposable thumbs, Flo, you're going to find that rather difficult.

Re:He knows more about technology than cats.

[Kris_J]

Apparently if you make a point of playing with the prey for a while they stop doing it.

Does taking a clueless and un-injured mouse from two equally clueless cats, walking out to the back garden and flinging it over the fence count?

You should see our cats with a mouse -- the mouse typically runs into the nearest corner and then our cats just stare at it. Occasionally one will go up and tap it. Once it obviously grabbed hold of a paw because there was a sudden flicking of said paw as if to say "Eww, get if off!", mouse lobs off into distance then runs straight back to the same corner. It was pathetic.

Now, if they'd just stop bring geckos into the house...

Re:a cat story

[zephc]

"Out of the cat box and into the streets! Out of the cat box and into the streets!" - from a Cat Pride rally

Re:Sorry Cats are too intelligent

[Alsee]

Bewilderment leads to frustration.

Frustration leads to extension of claws

extension of claws leads to the dark side

consume you it will

-

Re:I like the daily log of cat activity

[Akumapwr]

Slashdot is becoming weaker! We need to start logging onto sites on 5-10 machines at a time! Must wreak havoc! Must wreak Hacov! Must.. mussttt.... rreeechhkkkkkkk Akuampwr has got link dead.

Has anyone considered the rights of the cat!

[Bakajin]

Did the cat agree to be electronically monitored? This is Big Human rearing its ugly head. It is 1984 meets Animal Farm. We need the involvment of a join task force of the EFF and SPCA.

Parents need the same thing for their daughters!

[SysKoll]

What parents really needs is a similar device that would work on their teenage daughters. That eeringly intelligent door-monitoring computer would work like this:

"Let's see, she's at the door, and she's holding something in her mouth. It looks like the zit-covered face of some boy who, frankly, looks and smells like he is half-dead. Access denied."

At this point, a good recognition algorithm would (a) lock the door, (b) drop four-pointed spikes on the sofa in case they break a window, (c) page dad, and (d) preload the shotgun.

-- SysKoll

CERT: Feline buffer overflow compromises doors

[xixax]

Users of intelligent cat doors are advised to place port negotiation into a manual mode after skrpt k1TTi3z have shown that malicious mouse objects can be instantiated inside your home perimeter by placing them inside a trusted feline packet and inducing an overflow condition once the trusted feline packet is inside your perimeter. The mouse object may be fragmented as mouse packet mangling is usually enabled by default.

It is recommended that vulnerable sites requiring Automated Feline Access Protocol institute Feline Packet Monitoring by using a set of scales to calculate mass checksums of all incoming and outgoing feline packets and to deny all incoming feline packets not initiated from within the home and to feline packets exhibiting significant mass checksum variation indicating the presence of an embedded mouse object.

As an added precaution, site implementing the shag-pile transport layer may wish to flush buffers of all incoming feline packets in a controlled environment such as the bathtub.

Xix.

voice recognignition

[obtuse]

My girlfriend taught me a voice recognition algorithm for her landlord's cat Ella. Listen when Ella asks to be let in.
Well articulated sounds are OK.
Poorly articulated noises, that would indicate a mouth full of mouse or lizard, mean don't open the door.

Eventually my girlfriend trained me to use this algorithm. My training was assisted by a 2:30 am hunt for the completely alive mouse that the cat dragged in. Ella dropped the mouse for us, and I tore the house apart to capture & eject it, competing with Ella the cat.

Married the girlfriend who demonstrated the astonishing ability to train even me.

Smart bloody cats

[rediguana]

Once, around christmas time, one of our cats had seen us stashing presents under the tree. I was upstairs and heard my mum scream "Ginger's got a bird, come quick." Knowing full well it was my duty to get the bird off him. I came down the stairs and saw him wandering around the corner into the living room where the xmas tree was, and just caught a glimpse of something big and black in his mouth. I rushed down and through into the living room, and low and behold Ginger had deposited a 3/4 size _duck_ still alive on top of the presents under the tree. Luckily the duck wasn't too shaken so we gave Ginger lots of attention (cuddles, councilling... :) and I took the duck over to the neighbours stream and released, twas just shocked I think.