Every parent knows just how frustrating it can be when the baby cries and you can’t figure out why. Is it hunger? Pain? Discomfort? What? Most of the anguish that new parents face is tied in to this issue. Now a new company is hoping to combat the panic by introducing a smartphone app which will translate those cries into a meaningful suggestion. Don’t laugh, they think they can do it.
Lullabond is the name of this miracle program, which is still in development, and it is apparently based around the use of sophisticated audio analysis, using pattern matching, audio dynamics and a bunch of other geeky words. They’re also going to rely heavily on a database of actual baby cries donated by existing parents under a Donate A Cry program. They hope to get 10,000 cries to start off with and keep building the catalog.
We think they should actually sell the cries to the general public as alarm ringtones, and make a bit of extra cash on the side. Anyhoo, it all sounds very nice, but we suspect that rather like Bowlingual, the end result may fall well short of the expectations of desperate parents (or owners) at 3am in the morning.