Use robot toys to play with kitties over the internet

Animal shelters in Oregon and Idaho have cats available for adoption. And if you can’t make it in to see them, you can play with them anyway through the internet.

You have to use Internet Explorer, download an application, wait in line, and then, when it’s your turn, you get 2 minutes to play with a kitty. There are toys you can control remotely and you can move a camera around. This has apparently upped the number of visitors to the Humane Societies’ websites and increased the number of kitty adoptions.

On a bizarre and vaguely menacing additional note: the company that made this system possible is working on a plan where you’ll be able to feed lions at the zoo using meat attached to a robotic arm that you control. So whereas normally the phrase “the lion ate the meat off my arm!” would be a bad thing, soon it will be delightful!

(via PC World)