Can this device REALLY translate baby talk?
The Age:
The cryptic cries, grins and gurgles of babies that leave parents dumbfounded could soon be deciphered, if the wonders of modern technology are to be trusted. Three years after a toymaker scored a smash hit with the "Bowlingual" gadget to interpret the warp and woof of a dog's life, Japanese researchers may have an even bigger sensation - a translator for baby babbling.
"We aim to develop a device to read babies' feelings," says Kazuyuki Shinohara, a neurobiology professor at the state-run Nagasaki University who leads the research team.
The gadget could be a godsend in a country where a growing number of young people find child-rearing too burdensome, although some experts are cautious about an almost science-fiction world where babies are understood with machines before they learn to talk. Shinohara's group has been conducting experiments involving mothers and their babies by monitoring the infants' cries, facial expressions and body temperature changes in a project backed by the government-subsidised Japan Science and Technology Agency.
"We are trying to read babies' faces numerically such as the distance between eyebrows and the nose tip," Shinohara tells AFP.
As for other clues on what babies mean to say, researchers are also analysing whether high or low frequencies in the sound of the cries show they want specific things. The team is also monitoring the temperatures of babies' bodies, mostly the face, through thermography. Shinohara says changes in temperature normally indicate particular desires. The professor, who declined to elaborate on his conclusions or the shape of the gadget pending patenting, aims to launch the device by mid-2006.
"The technology will be completed by around summer this year," he says. "Commercialisation will likely come in spring or summer of next year as it is expected to take some time to make the device smaller."
The product would be for use at both medical institutions and in homes. The professor says he wants to make the price for a home-use version below 10,000 yen (95 dollars). As Japanese families are becoming smaller, many parents lack knowhow in taking care of babies.
"We have seen a lot of mothers who can hardly hug their babies," Shinohara says. "With their husbands returning home late and local communities losing close bonds among residents, these mothers have to struggle with child-rearing alone even if it is a totally new experience for them," he says.
