Thursday, April 07, 2005

WhyCry reads babies' cries


recently i was reading a book by augusten burroughs, sort of like a memoir, and he tells this story about how he stepped on a little girl's hand once. she was crawling on the floor and his big foot just crunched her fingers. she looked up with a face of sheer terror, a loud toddler cry about to erupt from her screaming mouth, and he quickly retreated to the other side of the store. no one saw the incident, but a few moments later when the toddler started bawling, the mother came over to console the child, and when she asked what was wrong the child appeared to point at some toys or candy, and the mother began to loudly scold the child for being so greedy. well, children never need fear being misunderstood again.

the WhyCry analyzes the pitch of babies' cries and tells you whether or not the babies are hungry, stressed, bored, tired, or uncomfortable, which is apparently all detectable through the magic of machines. i imagine that intuitive parents start to figure out what their child is upset about eventually, but for the tone-deaf and bumbling, this detector does it for you. what would freud say about a child that was always perfectly understood even when incoherently crying? after this we can say goodbye to existentialism.

idea via popgadget

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