There’s An App That (Allegedly) Translates Your Cat’s Meows

The app for lonely house marms like myself has finally arrived! MeowTalk is an app from one of the people who helped develop the Amazon Alexa and it can allegedly translate a cat’s meows into something we can understand. Finally, I’ll be able to understand the slurs my cat Mikelangelo yells to the squirrels!

People says that former Amazon engineer, Javier Sanchez, has become a project manager with tech company Akvelon and has been developing an app for the pussy lovers out there. MeowTalk translates a cat’s vocalizations into something a person can understand. He said a cat’s meows are unique and a way for them to communicate with people:

“It’s not a language. They don’t share words or communicate with each other. Cats never meow at each other out in nature.”

I already knew that about cats because I’m one of those people. Cats meow to us–that’s for our benefit. Javier and his MeowTalk team have assessed that cats have nine different intents when meowing at people and each has its own type of vocalization. By applying the research from Alexa which harvested our information and secrets Javier has been trying to decode meows into phrases like “I’m hungry,” or “I’m in pain.” Javier should also decode phrases like “DIE! DIE! HUMAN!” since I’m sure that’s the most used phrase by cats.

The app will let cat owners record meows and then translate the sounds. Then MeowTalk can steal your cat’s soul the way Alexa and Hey Google have already stolen yours–there’s an option to train the app to learn your cat’s unique vocalizations. I don’t need SkyNet hunting down Mikelangelo too, thanks. Here’s a full description of the app:

“Using machine learning MeowTalk instantaneously translates your cat’s meows into one of nine general cat intents; these nine intents represent cat moods and states of mind. But each cat also has its own unique vocalization and vocabulary of meows that goes beyond these nine general intents. You can train the MeowTalk app to learn your cat’s unique vocabulary of meows (cat talk) by telling the app what each meow means when your cat makes it. When you give the app 5 to 10 examples of a specific meow for your cat (e.g. “food”, “let me out”) the app can start to recognize that meow (be your cat translator) when it hears it.”

The app is available now but is still technically under development as they continually refine and update, so the one on app stores is the prototype. Javier wants to then turn this into a collar for your cat to translate in real-time.

A collar from the people of Amazon Alexa? No way that’s nefarious or tracking you. Upon inspection, this is a hard pass for me. I already can guess what my cat is saying and it’s usually “shut the fuck up and leave me alone.” Which I’m fine with. I do see some cat people downloading this, though. Like, I can’t wait for Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson to start bossing Taylor Swift around more than they already do. They’re gonna be writing her songs!

Pic: Instagram