We all know the feeling of staring into a donkey’s expressive eyes and trying to understand what she’s telling us as she hee-haws fervently. So frustrating! Luckily there’s a new technology that can help.
Mark Ineson, a “donkey whisperer” who owns a donkey farm in West Yorkshire, England, hosted donkey rides in London’s Jubilee Gardens this week that incorporated the digital translations. The technology purports to analyze the donkey sounds and associate them with particular emotions. To be clear, whatever merit this contraption has, a donkey translator is still not a real thing.
The technology firm Design Works collaborated with Ineson to develop the translation system, which turns donkey sounds into full English phrases and sentences like, “I do like to be beside the riverside,” and “hold on tight.” Design Works director of prototyping Sean Miles told Engineering and Technology Magazine, “We’ve been asked for all sorts of crazy contraptions over the years but getting donkeys to talk was a whole new challenge for us. … While the technology that identifies sound as a trigger was relatively achievable, figuring out the animals’ emotions was much harder.”
That was the easy part for Ineson, who owns 17 donkeys as part of his “Real Donkeys” organization and has worked with donkeys for more than 20 years. “We get the nudges, we get the facial expressions,” he told Reuters. “[We] work very closely with them, day in day out, and pick up on their mannerisms, their emotions, what they’re thinking basically.” The “Real Donkeys” website notes that its stylish inhabitants have won awards like “Best Beach Donkey” and runner up in Donkey Sanctuary’s “best group” award.
Chloe Couchman, a spokesperson for Merlin Events (the group that organized the Jubilee Gardens donkey fete), told ODN in the above video, “We know that people love donkeys.” Can’t argue with that.
