Researcher Uses iPad to Communicate With Dolphin

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Apple products such as the iPhone and iPad have revolutionized daily life for millions of people. But are dolphins the next species to experience Steve Jobs' reality distortion field?

Dolphin researcher Jack Kassewitz believes the iPad or similar product might expand the mammal's ability to communicate.

"The use of the iPad is part of our continuing search to find a suitable touch screen technology which the dolphins can activate with the tip of their rostrums or beaks," Kassewitz says in a news release from Speak Dolphin , an organization dedicated to unlocking the secrets of cetacean communication.

"We think that once the dolphins get the hang of the touch screen, we can let them choose from a wide assortment of symbols to represent objects, actions and even emotions."

The work at a dolphin facility in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico, involves showing a two-year-old bottlenose dolphin named Merlin real objects like a ball, cube or plastic duck. He then identifies pictures of those objects on a waterproof iPad by tapping the touch-screen with his beak, reports the news site canoe.ca .

Next they plan to layer in verbs and prepositions. The result could be interactive communication, reports the Yahoo! Green blog .

"The dolphin loves the iPad," Kassewitz tells canoe.ca . "He can actually make the thing work. We've had a lot of fun."

Kassewitz says scientists are well aware the intelligence of dolphins and their ability to communicate with one another. But, he adds, computer technology is the only way to bridge the gap between dolphin-to-human communications.

"They have a unique brain," he tells the news site. "It's about looking at the broader idea of how humans develop language and how we can help people who are challenged in that area."

Fox 5

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