Researchers led by Read Montague at Virginia Tech have just made the claim that if they scan you with an fMRI while you view an image of disgust, their algorithm can classify you as liberal or conservative to a 95% confidence level.
The wily geniuses at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany have created the world’s first real-time emotion detection app for Google Glass. The app (glassware, as Google prefers to call it) can also accurately detect someone’s age or gender. Real-time emotion detection could be of great use for people with disorders such as autism, who often struggle to interpret facial expressions, or simply for people who struggle to divine their partner’s true emotional state when they say that they’re “fine.’
International researchers are reporting that they have built the first human-to-human brain-to-brain interface, allowing two humans — separated by the internet — to consciously communicate with each other, directly from one brain to another. In short, the researchers have created a device that enables telepathy. In the future, rather than vocalizing speech — or vainly attempting to vocalize your emotions — your friend/lover/family member might just pluck those words and thoughts right out of your head.
European car safety researchers have developed a camera-based system that watches your facial expressions while you drive, and then uses highly accurate emotion detection algorithms to work out when you’re suffering from road rage. The idea behind this system is that, when you’re irritated or angry, you become a more aggressive driver and less attentive — leading to more accidents. The same technology can also be used to measure tiredness and fatigue, by measuring the percentage of your eyelid closure, and then warning you to take a break before you fall asleep at the wheel.
A new patent application filed by Motorola Mobile for integrating smart tattoos with smartphones as an auxiliary control device points at some tantilizing new possibilities. Some strange wording buried in the text raises a few questions as to motivations behind the patent.
Researchers in Finland have compiled the first authoritative atlas of “body maps” that detail where we feel emotions. We can now clearly see that happiness actually makes us feel tingly all over, that sadness is felt in the heart, and that depression is characterized by an all-over numbness. It would seem that idioms such as a chest puffed with pride, or cold feet, are very much seated in physiological reality.
Smartphones are amazing. They tell us where we’re going, let us know if it’s going to rain, and even act like personal assistants. Now, a new research project out of the University of Rochester aims to make your phone capable of sensing your emotions just from measuring how you’re speaking — not based on what you’re saying.
Judging by an early prototype Samsung Galaxy S II developed by a wing of Samsung’s huge R&D group, your smartphone might soon block you from posting tweets and status updates, depending on your emotional state.
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