A pet identification app could replace microchips to recognize dogs and cats, South Korean company Petnow demonstrated at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The Petnow app uses the fingerprint-like properties of a cat’s or dog’s nose to determine their identity.
“So, as humans have fingerprints, every dog and cat has its own unique nose print. So we use that as a pet ID. And our ultimate goal is to replace microchipping because microchipping can be very invasive for pets; you have to inject needles into pets’ bodies,” Petnow’s Johnny Lee told news agency Reuters in Barcelona.
“But a lot of pet owners do not like that kind of invasiveness. So our app could be the solution. So all you need to do with our app is to scan a dog’s nose or a cat’s face and put your information in it, and that’s it,” he said.
Lee explained that in the same way that human beings have unique fingerprints that do not change over time, the nose of a dog or the face of a cat act similarly.
“Nose print is actually a unique nose pattern on the nose, so it does not change in time, or it does not change in colour. So it’s a pattern, so you don’t have to worry about the nose print. And for the cat’s face, cats are known as self-groomers, so they maintain their facial contour all the time.”
Using the Petnow app, cat and dog owners can register the nose or face of their pets. The app is powered by artificial intelligence, with AI features rapidly tracking the nose or face when the date is being collected.
It focuses on the center of the detected nose or face, taking 5-20 high-quality pictures and sending them to the server to recognize the pet’s biometric information. According to the company, it currently boasts 98.97% accuracy.
