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dog posts

iBone chew toy gives sneak peek at dog-centric App Store

by Darren Murph posted Oct 24th 2008 @ 10:48AM

We're going out on a limb here and assuming that the Haute Diggity Dog iBone comes jailbroken and ready to rock, or at least that's the impression we get from checking out that heretofore unseen bevy of icons. Customized for the "tech savvy dog on the go," this here iPhone chew toy gives dear Fido access to bark / hand-shake training, posture lessons, Washington Huskies sports updates (it's the Clemson Tigers in all honesty, but work with us here), a mysterious fitness app and a bone application for times when supper just seems too far away. You know your pup's worth the $11.95, you just know it.

[Via textually]

Dogs used to sniff out cellphones in prison, arf arf!

by Sean Cooper posted Sep 10th 2008 @ 3:03AM

Maryland has switched to canine power to sniff out illegal cells in its penal system since the "ask nicely" policy just isn't working out for them. The pooches have their work cut out for them if they hope to stem the flow of the estimated 800 sets that get into prisons yearly. The worry isn't that a small black market accessory market will spring up, but rather that the people behind bars can carry on the business that landed them in prison in the first place. Cell phones apparently get behind bars by being smuggled in boxes, food, shoes, and any other place imaginable and currently fetch about $400 for the privilege of ownership. The state currently has three pooches on the payroll, a Belgian Malinois, a German shepherd mix, and were trained up in as little as six weeks. With only a couple months behind their collars, the pups have already bagged some two-dozen phones. Not a bad bit of work, we're hoping they're available for rent in the coming months, we've lost countless sets around here and would love to get 'am all back.

Verizon pulls pit bull LG Dare commercial after PETA bombardment

by Darren Murph posted Aug 6th 2008 @ 1:09PM

Say what you will about PETA's beliefs, but if there's one thing that group proves, it's that there is power in numbers. Verizon Wireless had been fairly adamant that it would continue airing its pit bull ad for the LG Dare -- which shows a pair of the dogs chained up in a junkyard guarding heaps of metal and a misplaced handset -- but after PETA issued an "action alert" that triggered 7,000 emails to the outfit's CEO, its tune changed. For those longing to waste another 30 seconds of their life watching the spot that will never again air on the small screen, click on past the break.

Continue reading Verizon pulls pit bull LG Dare commercial after PETA bombardment

KTF's surveillance canine beams snapshots via HSDPA

by Darren Murph posted Apr 21st 2007 @ 4:30PM

It just makes sense that the same Korean provider that offered up a pet translator service would attempt to give back to the owners, as KTF has launched a robotic puppy that just melts the hearts of gizmo-lovin' gals abroad. Specifically, it garners a crowd of individuals wherever it's at, and then pulls double duty as an undercover surveillance agent, snapping mobile images and channeling them straight to your cellphone via HSDPA. For the paranoid 'rents in the crowd, this here ought to be a perfect way to monitor what really goes down in the house while you're away for the weekend, and while it's no guard dog per se, the evidence this bad boy captures could indeed be quite frightening. [Warning: Read link requires subscription]

Trained dog sniffs out cellphones in prison

by Darren Murph posted Oct 5th 2006 @ 2:44PM

Sure, you've got options when it comes to keeping track of your meandering canine, but Mel Barker of the Norwich prison is turning the tables on who gets called master. Aside from the ridiculous amount of gadget theft (and subsequent injuries) already occurring in the UK, the smuggling of cellphones behind closed bars is apparently quite an epidemic. With transport vehicles ranging from hollowed out cheese wheels to underhanded cops, Barker resorted to training a 15-month old English Springer Spaniel (Murphy) to hunt down illicit mobiles before the wrong (or right, depending on perspective) people received an unexpected call. The pup has his work cut out for him, however, as over 60 phones have been confiscated from prisoners during the past year, and the demand is presumably still on the rise -- but considering his uncanny ability to detect "scents unique to mobile phones," we're sure Murphy will have it all sniffed out real soon.

[Via Textually]