The fantasy of man talking to the animals has been a staple of Hollywood ever since Dr Dolittle made his debut 50 years ago. Now two of the original architects of social media believe they may be on the brink of turning it into reality by using artificial intelligence to create a translation system that will understand what animals are saying and what they think of us. They have analysed 70 human languages to establish all have a universal "shape" such that a computer can translate one into the other without any prior understanding or knowledge. Aza Raskin, designer of tech features and software used worldwide, and Britt Selvitelle, founder engineer of Twitter, are now creating a similar database...