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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/ma...RYI.html?8hpib
OMG they've finally done it!
Reposted from the New York Times:
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Crying-Baby Translator, The
By BRUCE GRIERSON
There may be no deeper frustration for a new parent than staring into the tear-glazed face of your crying baby and wondering What? What?! What are you trying to tell me, my preverbal friend?
Still, it used to be acceptable to believe that crying is simply what babies do, and that a cry can't always be sourced to this wet diaper or that locked-up burp, that sometimes a cry is just the sign of a new nervous and digestive system adjusting to the world. But our impatience for answers has sharpened. A crying baby is no longer merely a being to be loved, but a problem to be solved.
Pedro Monagas, an electronics engineer in Castellar del Valles, Spain (a village not far from Barcelona), reasoned that the epic crying spells of his newborn son, Alex, must be a language of their own. He studied Alex's cries for a year, then spent three years touring nurseries, monitoring another 100 or so other infants, noting differences in the volume and frequency of cries, and the intervals between them. His invention, WhyCry, hit Spanish department and specialty stores, where it sells for 95 euros, in October.
The calculator-size device, which is marketed by the Spanish maternity-products company Rosmari, has a microprocessor that can decipher the broad meaning of a baby's cry with 87 percent accuracy, claims Monagas (when the parent also consults the ''symptom table'' of the baby's body language, that figure rises to 98 percent, he says). The gadget listens to a crying baby, considers and calculates for 20 seconds or so, then illuminates one of five icons, each corresponding to a distinct physiological or emotional state: ''hungry,'' ''sleepy,'' ''uncomfortable,'' ''stressed'' or simply ''bored.'' According to Rosmari's marketing manager, Eva Cruells, a stressed cry has a strong, short attack, falls slowly and then rises again, whereas a hungry cry is high-pitched and energetic.
The WhyCry is bound to be a hit when an English-language version finds its way to the market (the British company Mothercare is already in negotiations with Monagas). All parents believe their kids are capable of communicating well before they can make comprehensible speech. And the almost poetic appeal of verbalizing your child's earliest thoughts, no matter how mundane, is hard to deny.
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-Epi
OMG they've finally done it!
Reposted from the New York Times:
==========================
Crying-Baby Translator, The
By BRUCE GRIERSON
There may be no deeper frustration for a new parent than staring into the tear-glazed face of your crying baby and wondering What? What?! What are you trying to tell me, my preverbal friend?
Still, it used to be acceptable to believe that crying is simply what babies do, and that a cry can't always be sourced to this wet diaper or that locked-up burp, that sometimes a cry is just the sign of a new nervous and digestive system adjusting to the world. But our impatience for answers has sharpened. A crying baby is no longer merely a being to be loved, but a problem to be solved.
Pedro Monagas, an electronics engineer in Castellar del Valles, Spain (a village not far from Barcelona), reasoned that the epic crying spells of his newborn son, Alex, must be a language of their own. He studied Alex's cries for a year, then spent three years touring nurseries, monitoring another 100 or so other infants, noting differences in the volume and frequency of cries, and the intervals between them. His invention, WhyCry, hit Spanish department and specialty stores, where it sells for 95 euros, in October.
The calculator-size device, which is marketed by the Spanish maternity-products company Rosmari, has a microprocessor that can decipher the broad meaning of a baby's cry with 87 percent accuracy, claims Monagas (when the parent also consults the ''symptom table'' of the baby's body language, that figure rises to 98 percent, he says). The gadget listens to a crying baby, considers and calculates for 20 seconds or so, then illuminates one of five icons, each corresponding to a distinct physiological or emotional state: ''hungry,'' ''sleepy,'' ''uncomfortable,'' ''stressed'' or simply ''bored.'' According to Rosmari's marketing manager, Eva Cruells, a stressed cry has a strong, short attack, falls slowly and then rises again, whereas a hungry cry is high-pitched and energetic.
The WhyCry is bound to be a hit when an English-language version finds its way to the market (the British company Mothercare is already in negotiations with Monagas). All parents believe their kids are capable of communicating well before they can make comprehensible speech. And the almost poetic appeal of verbalizing your child's earliest thoughts, no matter how mundane, is hard to deny.
==========================
-Epi
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