Quirky News
Orangutans to use iPads to order lunch?
Orangutans at a Florida zoo are using iPads to communicate with their keepers.
Staff at Jungle Island Zoo in Miami could eventually use the tablets to tell them what they want to eat.
Zookeeper Linda Jacobs said: "They have all the intelligence they need to communicate with us.
"But what they don't have is developed vocal chords and voiceboxes. This gives them a voice.
"Some of them like carrots more than they like beets. And don't we all want to have that choice?
"I don't want to eat the same thing every day that someone else picks for me. I want them to have a choice over their lunches."
As well as empowering the orangutans, it is hoped that the tech-friendly apes will even be able to social network with visitors to the zoo.
The zoo plans to let people communicate with the animals by setting up interactive screens that sync with the orangutans' iPads.
Update:
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what do you think?
kyle rambo
They want them to be intelligent why dont they just put them back in the wild! keeping them in the cage is crueller than leaving enough of them with a type writer and expecting them to write Shakespeare!
Julie Crumpton
Degrading for these noble creatures
chris
nah...it makes a vital point. As things stand one day soon ALL such animals will be extinct in the 'wild'. Just maybe, one day an ape might be able to make a plea for its survival, given a voice, like for Prof Hawkin. How amazing would that be? Even pictures or symbols. But would we listen?
Valerie Wood
No Chris human's sadly wouldn't listen because the human race is self centred and self destructive. They cannot even get on with one another let alone another species. Sad but true
Derek Porter
The usual Orange proof reading :- QUOTE "Staff at Jungle Island Zoo in Miami could eventually use the tablets to tell them what they want to eat." So, does that mean that the staff tell the Orangutans what the staff want to eat, or the staff tell the Orangutans what the Orangutans want to eat. It certainly doesn't mean what the headline states.
Willie Watson
This is an experiment with awesome potential. I look forward to the day one of them figures out how to use a computer well enough to say "Why are we in cages here?"
Adrian Wagstaff
11:40am on 6/7/2012
They just never seem to understand how important it is to not get too close to something which can lift 1,000 lbs with one arm. If that cuddly "Hannah" was having a bad day, it might want to rip her nose off, finger, arm or squeeze her entire body through one of them squares in the fence.
Rob Shaw
1:08pm on 6/7/2012
they aren't hugging them pal, just feeding them
Jonathan Harrison
11:40am on 10/7/2012
Please could I have the citation for the 1,000 lb one arm lift? Thanks