![]() In addition, a loud, annoying noise is triggered from the computer’s speakers, so as to scare away the heat-seeking furball. ![]() …the cat is greeted with an ominous grey screen: When PawSense detects a cat (usually “within one or two pawsteps”), it triggers a popup window that locks the keyboard, preventing the animal from wreaking havoc on one’s operating system. Every time your computer boots up, PawSense automatically starts up in the background to watch over your computer system and monitor keyboard activity. ![]() The goal was to analyze keypress timings and combinations to distinguish cat typing from human typing - and once Niswander had locked down a “formula” for determining this, he wrote a code that automatically detected it. This forces keys and often key combinations down in a distinctive style of typing which includes unusual timing patterns.” The cat’s paw angles and toe positions also undergo complex changes while the paw lands on the keyboard. “When a cat first places its paw down, the cat’s weight plus the momentum of the cat’s movement exerts pounds of force on the keyboard, primarily through the cat’s paw pads. Then, through scrupulous field observation of cats in motion, he factored in the timing and momentum of a cat’s steps: He compiled a gargantuan list of these possible combinations, weeding out those that were actually real commands. Since virtually all cat paws are larger than any single keyboard key, he found that with each step, a cat would press down key combinations. The first order of business was writing a code that could detect “cat-like typing.” Niswander’s approach was, of course, at the highest level of scientific soundness: “I made these cardboard cutouts of cat paws, then ‘walked’ them across my keyboard, pretending I was a cat.” “But the only way it would be funnier would be as a real piece of software that people actually use.” “I thought it was a really funny idea,” he says. So, Niswander took up a seemingly Sisyphean feat: creating a software program that would repel cats. From talking to other pet owners, he quickly established that cat computer squatting was a very common problem, for which there seemed to exist no discernable solution. He knew the creatures had a propensity for sitting on strange things - especially computers, which they seem to treat as tiny, heated chairs. Niswander was no stranger to feline antics. “I figured out that he’d triggered a series of keyboard shortcuts (ALT, CTRL, F1-F2) with his paws.” “One day, my sister’s cat, Amos, walked across her computer keyboard and managed to uninstall some software, delete crucial files, and crash the machine,” Niswander recalls. Then, somewhat fortuitously, the idea of the century descended upon him. While 140 Ig Nobel prizes have been doled out in history, only one has been awarded in the category of “computer science.” This distinct honor goes to PawSense, a software designed to detect when a cat walks across a computer keyboard.Īs cat owners all too familiar with this phenomenon, we had to find out what PawSense was all about.Īfter earning a degree in computer science from Arizona State University in the mid-90s, Chris Niswander spent his post-college days coding puzzle mazes, building Japanese language learning programs, and building python obfuscators. Launched in 1991 by science/humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, the “Ig Nobel” awards (a parody of the Nobel Prize) recognizes ten achievements per year, in a wide variety of fields, that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” Often, the winning ideas are slightly moronic, and border on the absurd: Every September, 1,100 finely-dressed denizens gather at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre - a building crafted with ornate woodwork and golden pillars - for an unusual ceremony. ![]()
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