A Smartphone That Can Detect Your Mood? Microsoft Has One
Microsoft is working on a revolutionary smartphone that is not about speed and better HD display rather; it is focusing on a mobile device that can tell a person's mood. The smartphone technology not only senses individual moods, but it can also automatically share it over different social networking sites.
Microsoft Research in Asia published a research paper which Techworld Australia first chanced upon. The paper reveals that Microsoft is working with "mood sensors," allowing smartphones to detect the moods of their users. The technology was dubbed Moodscope. It can allow users to share their moods automatically across different social networking platforms.
There are sensors that measure acceleration and light but Moodscope focuses on a person's mental state. It can classify people according to categories like bored, upset, happy, tense, excited, stressed or calm.
"[P]rivacy concerns aside, these moods would enhance social networks by allowing users to share mood states automatically," researchers were quoted in the paper.
"Users would be able to know better how and when to communicate with others," the paper added.
Microsoft explained that a smartphone telling people about its owner's mood can help others know earlier on what the person is feeling. This will help them figure out how to best approach he person. More than sharing moods over the Internet, it can help avoid conflicts.
"Mood sensing can enable users to digitally communicate closer to the way they would in real life," the report read. "For mood sharing, an automatic mood sensor will not only improve the usability but also more importantly, lower the social barrier for a user to share their mood: we do not directly tell others our mood very often, but we do not try to conceal our mood very often either," Microsoft said in the report.
The report also indicated that the company has already created the prototype. The prototype is 66% accurate. The study included 32 participants. Following two months of training, the accuracy of the technology went up to 95%.
Microsoft hinted that other applications or programs can benefit from such as well.
"Video and music recommender systems such as Netflix or Spotify would benefit from using mood as an input to their recommendation algorithms," the researchers wrote. "By knowing the user's mood and building preferences based on previously selected items, these providers could recommend different media to match the user's current mood."