NEWS OF THE WEIRD
What Fido is saying
The South Korean startup Petpuls Lab has announced it developed an AI dog collar that can help owners discern what emotions their pets are feeling based on how they bark.
“This device gives a dog a voice so that humans can understand,” the company’s director of global marketing, Andrew Gil, told Reuters. The collar detects five emotions, and owners can find out through a smartphone app if their pets are happy, relaxed, anxious, angry or sad.
Seoul National University tested the device and declared it has a 90 percent average accuracy rate. The collar sells for $99.
When cats are away
An armed man wearing camouflage tactical gear approached a 23-year-old worker as she was leaving the Cranbourne West Lost Dogs Home in Melbourne, Australia, about 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 11 and demanded she turn over her cellphone, Detective Senior Sergeant Glen Cruse told the media.
Victoria police said the man pointed his gun at the woman, then took her inside the shelter, tied her up and “asked where the cats were before he left the room and didn’t return,” the Daily Star reported.
The woman freed herself and called for help; police are still looking for the man and a motive.
Wrong place, time
Veronica Gutierrez, 36, was arrested in Palm Springs, Calif., on Jan. 5 after allegedly carjacking an SUV that afternoon in Rosemead, an incident complicated by the fact that the car owner’s 84year-old mother was in the passenger seat, according to authorities.
Police Sgt. Richard Lewis said the owner had left the SUV’S motor running with the heater on for her mother when the suspect drove off, letting the mother go in Desert Hot Springs, more than 100 miles away.
The East Bay Times reported the mother was unharmed, and Gutierrez was in custody.
Mealworm on menu
The European Food Safety Agency on Jan. 13 approved yellow grubs, aka mealworms, as its first insect “novel food,” to be used whole and dried in curries and as flour to make pastas and breads, Reuters reported.
Mealworms are rich in protein, fat and fiber, according to agency food scientist Ermolaos Ververis.
But sociologists point out “the so-called ‘yuck factor’ (may) make the thought of eating insects repellent to many Europeans,” said consumer researcher Giovanni Sogari of the University of Parma in Italy.
Criminally incompetent
Aasim J. Hilts, 26, of Albany, N.Y., and Shariff A. Frasier of Schenectady returned their rental car Jan. 13, leaving behind an impressive amount of drugs and paraphernalia, The Daily Gazette reported.
Albany County Sheriff ’s deputies were called and arrived about the same time Hilts and Frasier returned to pick up their items, authorities said, which included heroin, oxycodone pills pressed with fentanyl, marijuana and almost $6,000 in cash. Both men were arrested and face drug charges.