China’s Baidu as unveiled a cat shelter that it built to care for stray cats and the shelter incorporates two innovative technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and facial recognition. The internet giant says the project was instigated by one of its employees Wan Xi who discovered a small cat sheltering under his car last winter. The employee took the cat to a vet and then resolved to deploy his technological know-how to help improve the situation for other stray cats.
The shelter is equipped with several facilities such as regular dispatches of food and water, a warm space to sleep and even toys to keep the cat company. The standout feature is the technological add-ons which ensure only cats can get in. One of such is the facial recognition to grant the cat access to the shelter. The shelter has a glass door which slides open when a cat is t the front. The facial recognition also checks if the cat has any disease and assess whether or not they’ve been neutered. Where it is identified to be a sick cat, a message is sent to a nearby volunteer organization that looks after stray animals to come and administer the required help. There was no mention of the number of cats the shelter can hold at a time.
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This is likely a pilot project and the innovation could be of immense usefulness in China were cats are popular pets. It is also common to see stray cats with such a large population of cat lovers.
(source)
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