An interactive cat toy interfacing owner PC operations

Abstract

As information technologies advance, our living environment is rapidly changes. However, support and consideration for animals as pets living with people is hardly done. Thus, pets are largely left behind with the changes in human living environments and its environments typically are designed just for people. For instance, when a cat walks on a keyboard and performs “cat typing” when its owner is trying to work, the cat is actually attracted to the motion and the sounds. Unfortunately, the owner is forced to keep the cat at a distance to comfortably use the computer. In this study, we develop an interactive tablet-based cat entertainment system that cats can enjoy near the owners, who otherwise need to work on their own computers. During this study, we conducted an experiment with several cats to investigate the effectiveness of our system, called CATouch!. As a result, the three phenomena clarified in this experiment are not facts but were identified as hypotheses. Results indicated a positive correlation between cat entertainment and having access to their own equipment.