Arf !

A Japanese company has announced plans to market a dog translation device in the US, this summer. It's not a universal translation doohickey like in Star Trek, but it works by doing computer analysis of your dog's barks and whines. The device then can make a general assumption about whether your dog is happy, angry or sad and gives you a handy human phrase to let you know what the dog is probably barking.

300,000 of the $120 US gadgets have already been sold in Japan. Unless you prefer the simpler methods of guessing what the dog says of course. "Let's see, Rover just peed on the carpet so those barks must have meant 'Please let me out'!"