Orangutans at Miami Zoo Use iPads to Communicate

[Catbird]

From Wired:

"At the Miami Zoo’s Jungle Island, handlers are interacting with orangutans using the iPad. The apes use the tablet to identify items they’re familiar with, and express their wants and needs. This is done primarily through an app designed for autistic children that displays an array of object images onscreen.

“We’ll ask them to identify ‘Where’s the coconut?’, and they’ll point it out,” Linda Jacobs, who oversees the Jungle Island program, told Wired. “We want to build from that and give them a choice in what they have for dinner — show them pictures of every vegetable we have available that day, and let them pick, giving them the opportunity to have choices.”

This is just pretty darn cool!

[Exodia]

I hear they were taken away because the orangutans were caught streaming Rise of the Planet of the Apes and tweeting "remember #Caesar".

[sandyd]

More of them now think they are human. Is that good or bad?

[Catbird]

Originally Posted by Exodia

I hear they were taken away because the orangutans were caught streaming Rise of the Planet of the Apes and tweeting "remember #Caesar".

That hurt!!