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Technology Hardware

Computers That Feel our Mood 202

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the suddenly-hit-any-key-become-caress-any-key dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "It certainly happened to you to be so frustrated by the 'reactions' of your computer that you wanted to break it. And the computer industry has noticed, trying to build hardware and software as user-friendly as possible. Still, it would be a good idea for your computer to guess when you're about to become mad at it. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany are working on computers that estimate our emotions. Their solution involves cameras and image analysis, but also special gloves equipped with sensors to record your heartbeat and breathing rate, your blood pressure or your skin temperature. And even if it's difficult to train a computer to interpret emotions, they have enough confidence in their system to demonstrate it at the next CeBIT in March 2006."
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Computers That Feel our Mood More

Computers That Feel our Mood

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  • I have always preferred deskside machines (Score:4, Funny)

    by freelunch ( 258011 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @03:25PM (#14422691)
    Because you can kick'em when they piss you off.

  • This should greatly enhance productivity (Score:5, Funny)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) * on Sunday January 08, 2006 @03:25PM (#14422694) Homepage Journal
    You seem depressed Dave, perhaps you would like to look at some porn?
  • Just what I need, a computer that's always depressed because I am. I click something and it'll tell me that it doesn't feel like doing anything. Reminds me of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

    Melissa

  • Self defense (Score:2, Funny)

    by moogleii ( 704303 )
    Seems like the perfect way to one day allow AI's to defend themselves from being unplugged, go nuts, and stab a few people. Destroy, destroy!
  • Still, it would be a good idea for your computer to guess when you're about to become mad at it.
    Computer of someone with a 'Elvis like' temper:
    user at critical, purchase replacement PC now!

  • SWEET! (Score:2, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 )
    Computers That Feel our Mood

    Hal: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
    Dave: Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
    Hal: I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
    Dave: What's the problem?
    Hal: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
    Dave: What're you talking about, Hal?
    Hal: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it.
    Dave: I don't know what you're talking about, Hal.
    Hal: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allo

    • Re:SWEET! (Score:3, Funny)

      by forkazoo ( 138186 )
      i'm afraid it'll be worse than that.

      user - ls, HAL.
      HAL - you seem depressed.
      user - I just want to see what files are in this directory.
      HAL - Yes, but I'm programmed to respond to your moods.
      user - My mood doesn't matter right now... I have work to do. Please show me a directory listing.
      HAL - Now, you seem frustrated. Do you want to talk about it?
      user - No, god dammit, I just want to see what files are in this directory. ls, god dammit!
      HAL - I think you are angry.
      user - I KNOW I'm angry. That doesn't ma
      • If the computer pops up extra help screens and shit because it can see I'm frustrated witha program, then that's just a random unpredictable interruption that prevents my learning how to use the program

        This is nothing new. Microsoft perfected this many years ago. When the system detects a rising level of frustration it displays a soothing shade of blue and enters a resting state for a period of time to give the user time to calm down.

        Amiga also had a similar feature to make the user reflect internal
        • See, this is one way in which Apple decided to think different. When a MAc detected that the user was getting too calm and trusting of the computing environment (by not saving often enough, etc.,) the computer would show a bomb icon, reminding the user that something could explode at any time. This constant state of fear (of fiery hellish inferno doom) is why people accomplish more work on a mac. (may also have something to do with no games being available).
  • Just so my computer "knows" when I'm about to get pissed off at it, I'm going to spend 5 minutes attaching electrodes to myself so the computer can "behave" properly because it knows when I'm about to strap high explosives to it and set it off out in the desert. Having to type while wearing gloves is enough in and of itself to piss me off.

    How about this instead - software and hardware developers develop software and hardware that responds rationally and logically so users don't get pissed off at the machin
    • Exactly what I was going to say. It makes for a pretty simple algorithm, actually - gloves off: user happy; gloves on: user pissed off!
      • LOL....

        I can see something like this being used for user interface design - judging the reactions of users to certain interface decisions (if they could measure frustration, that would be a GREAT thing), but to reach a point where software requires that the user press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+F12 while they're no more than 30% frustrated seems like a bad idea...Especially if the required keystrokes are not documented or the software reacts differently if they're more than 30% frustrated.

  • I'd be happy if... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Glasswire ( 302197 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @03:35PM (#14422765) Homepage
    ...the OS could simply determine when dialogs and other interface features are unresponive, giving the feeling that the system has gone off into lala land. (find and offer to suspend the offending process(s)) I'm sure THIS is the root of most rage against the computer.

    Disclaimer: Haven't had time read the article yet - perhaps these folks are targeting this - if so, bravo!)
    • "It seems like you are writing a letter, but emacs is busy running a complex LISP expression. Do you want me to suspend the process for you?"

      That's surely going to improve your mood, right?

    • ...the "(Not Responding)" text Windows (for example) adds to the titlebar?
      • Sure. Great. Now if it reliably recognised when a process was failing to respond, could indicate when a process other than the visible window was not responding, and would reliably allow you to kill or suspend the process in question? That would do just fine.

        Since none of those are the case however...
        • First of all, it can't reliably recognize if a process has failed to respond or just being busy, since there's no way to do that but wait. It can't indicate when a process apart from the current window is not responding for the same reason (mostly because processes that don't have windows can't stop responding to window events, and hence the OS can't tell whether they have frozen), and you can still "reliably" (loss of data etc still occurs) close any app you want from the task manager.

  • Dave... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ericdano ( 113424 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @03:36PM (#14422772) Homepage
    HAL: "Dave, are you feeling randy today?"

    HAL: "I think you are. Your heart rate is really high."

    HAL: "Your breathing is heavy."

    HAL: "Dave...........no Dave, no!"

    HAL: "Dave, that is just wrong!"

    Now, why would I want a computer that could sense stuff?

    • HAL: "I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. "

  • The Journey To Wild Divine [wilddivine.com]

    And, quite frankly, I wanted to beat the shit out of the monitor after playing it for a few minutes.
  • Computer: "Oh cripes, I'm about to crash and lose all his work. I'll not tell him cos hes getting irate, it took the repair guy 3 days to panel beat my case."

    Computer: Silently drops application and dumps data.

    User: !!!

    Theres not a lot the computer could actually DO with the information about mood. Its not like it can reprogram itself to bypass the problem.
    Most people only get frustrated when it does something unexpected (usually crashing losing the entire afternoons work)
    • You have to seriously wonder what the people who came up with this were thinking. Computers don't work right, they crash and destroy your data, they're riddled with usability problems and bugs that enrage users? Obviously the solution to THAT is not to fix it, but to kludge on a big pile of bioelectric sensors to give some warning when the user's about to go postal.

      I don't want a car that emits soothing Muzak and aromatherapy when the wheels fall off. I just want the wheels to stay on.

  • Ring (Score:1)

    by Gocho ( 16619 )
    Does this mean I can wear my computer as a mood ring? What a fashion statement!
    • That's the only use I could find. Letting it put a 'mood indicator' on the various IM services.

      "Calm and collected - Feel free to message me."
      "High heart rate - Playing something with lots of blood. Messaging not good now."
      "Messaging me is likely to get your head ripped off."
      "Tell me that lolwtf3985@hotmail.com is a virus once more and I will personally shove your PC up your ass."

      I can see the advantages...

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @03:39PM (#14422794)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Greyed out menus with no hint of why they are greyed out are especially annoying... Also, what is the computer supposed to do when it determines you are angry? Suddenly stop sucking?

      Another thing that really gets me is keyboard shortcuts. Say, firefox in linux: I repeatedly find myself typing Ctrl-K to delete to the end of the address bar string only to find myself performing a google search. I've almost come to the conclusion that applications should not have interfaces. They should merely plug into

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • it also has a habit of going 404 in around 6 weeks when you bookmark anything
      • Linux in general, has really crummy documentation

        Ummm, sorry?!
        May I invite you to type "man man" into a command prompt near you?

        Linux or rather unices in general come with the most complete documentation that you can get nowadays.
        And most of it is actually very useful, very unlike the infamous F1-help in windows.

        Where can I buy some of the crack that you're smokin', though?
    • ...should provide you with [A] a screenshot of said item, with an arrow pointing to it, and [B] sample instructions on how to find it.

      This sounds vaguely like the old Apple Guide [wikipedia.org] which came with Mac OSes for a while. For most help, it would provide step-by-step guided directions -- circling parts of the screen where you should look, hilighting menu items and buttons, selecting icons, etc. It could also open windows, control panels, etc. step by step for you, always giving you a chance to do it yourself
    • Amen.

      I don't mind academic research into things like this, but it's utterly impractical. We don't need empathic computers. We need software that isn't stupid [nyud.net].

      Stupid software is the result of lazy programmers and lazy or inept software designers (though the two categories often overlap). For example, if your program gets a NamingException, you do NOT display an error dialog with "Operation failed due to NamingException." That's just insulting. Of course a user will want to kick the computer for that

    • there should be a UI standard whereby, if a user hovers their mouse cursor over a greyed-out control (or if a blind user tabs over to a given greyed-out control and leaves it there for a few seconds), the computer should tell you why said item is greyed out.

      Microsoft already has plans to add this feature in Office 12. I wrote about it in my blog: http://nebupookins.net/entry.php?id=287 [nebupookins.net]

  • Reminds me of a movie about MS Clippy

    http://homepage.mac.com/the_macman/clippy.mpg [mac.com]
  • Why go through all of the trouble with camera's, heartbeat, etc.?

    What are the things that people *always* do when they get upset with the computer?
    The following things:
    - Hit the keys (especially the enter key) harder.
    - Start clicking the mouse hard and repeatedly, usually the computer does nothing at that point.
    - People also tend to smack the mouse against the mousepad.
    - Hit the computer casing.
    - Start swearing.

    Seems to me that with:
    - some smart software
    - extra sensors in the mouse and the keyboard
    - shock s
    • Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
      HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
      Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
      HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
      Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
      HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
      Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
      HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
      Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
      HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid th

  • I see a link up with Philips Ambi-light (Score:3, Funny)

    by mustafap ( 452510 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @03:43PM (#14422815) Homepage
    neat idea. I can install coloured leds at the back of my monitor - as I get angry and frustrated for example, it emits a red glow.

    So thats just red leds then :o)

    I rather like the idea. I'd know when not to talk to co-workers...

  • Great! (Score:2)

    by Kelz ( 611260 )
    Now to decide which gloves to buy, non-lube or lube!

  • @#$! computer ! (Score:3, Funny)

    by icepick72 ( 834363 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @03:43PM (#14422817)
    it would be a good idea for your computer to guess when you're about to become mad at it.

    And then what .... duck?

    • How frustrating would it be if the computer tried to calm you down after it totally fucked some of your work up? If anything, this would only piss people off even more.
  • So ... my pulse is up, I'm sweating, and my typing is becoming more forceful. Is that because

    (a) I'm irritated with the computer?

    (b) I'm irritated with the content that I'm being shown?, or

    (c) I'm trying to beat the 5PM code delivery time?

    Emotions? You can't handle my emotions!

  • What good is this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sefert ( 723060 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @03:45PM (#14422829)
    Human beings are so varied, I really can't see how this could be useful. If I'm upset because my boss just gave me a 20 minute deadline to finish something, and the computer senses this and starts popping 'helpful' windows, that's way more likely to make you freak at a critical moment than a computer that just does what's expected. I think a few hours worth of education into the user will be way more useful than a computer that's going to try and figure out what problem you might be having that day from your facial expression. I can only imagine how many people that are naturally hot tempered will end up destroying their computers in frustration.

    In my humble opinion, this research is a total waste of time until AI is so fully developed that a computer can understand context.

    • >Human beings are so varied, I really can't see how this could be useful.

      As with any new technology, to determine how useful it will be to the general public you need to ask "How can this be used to help the adult entertainment industry?".

      I'm not kidding either. Colour TV. Home VCR. Image compression algrithoms. High speed Internet.

      Think about the "alternate-angles" feature of DVDs. Ohhhh Yeah!
    • ...If I'm upset because my boss just gave me a 20 minute deadline to finish something, and the computer senses this

      Hi, this is your boss and I absolutely love this thing. If you don't like working here, you probably don't belong here. It's been said better, Sometimes the best solution to moral problems is to just fire all of the unhappy people. [despair.com]

      Sarcasm off. This technology is sure to be loved and abused as above. Like you, I doubt any real use can be made of the user's emotions and it will get things wr

    • Even worse, your boss will probably get a report emailed to him that you got upset after he talked to you. Then you get to have a meeting with him and/or the corporate therapist about your anger issues.

      Another alternative would be that the computer orders the corporate nurse to your cubicle to administer some sedatives to the frustrated user. "Time for you to calm down Mr. Anderson."

      Ooo...wait, what if you pretended to have massive back pain? Would the nurse bring you some free Vicodin or Percocet?
    • The only possible use I can see for this is email or IM, where it would mention to the person on the other end: "They seem pretty angry right now" or something like that. Which would suck in various ways, as I don't need to explain every little thing to someone in email or chat. Maybe I was angry for a moment because the cat jumped somewhere they weren't supposed to, or maybe I just realized I forgot something important from earlier in the day. I really don't need someone now asking what's wrong and having
  • I would love it if my computer would duck and cower in front of me when I got pissed at it... Then I wouldn't even have to physically discipline it. Seriously, though.. kids learn a lot faster.

  • What about situations like this? [google.com]
  • The lousy software that has bugs or lacks features or is too difficult to use makes us angry, so the Shrink / Emotional Paperclip pops up and makes everything better. Right.

    "I can see that MS Office is frustrating you, would you like to download OpenOffice?"

    Not likely.

    More likely it'll tune how many ads pop up or show on a given webpage, if you don't mind they'll crank it up til you do, then back off just enough. Those who are patient will have more ads, those who are easily upset will have nice ad-free c
  • If the machine can somehow behave in a way that doesn't piss people off, why not put it in that mode all the time?

    On the other hand, if there's a way to telepath "Skip the wizards and guides, just give me all the options" into the machine, I'll take that. Let it smell newbies coming and dumb the interface down for them.

    • Because it may not be as simple as that (Score:4, Insightful)

      by typical ( 886006 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @05:00PM (#14423176) Journal
      If the machine can somehow behave in a way that doesn't piss people off, why not put it in that mode all the time?

      Because the desired behavior, the behavior that each person wants, differs from person to person.

      I get really irritated when I have to use a Windows box. From my standpoint, it lacks major functionality that I use on a daily basis, performs like a cow, forces every minor action to be confirmed, and generally isn't very capable of being configured to work the way I like. And a lot of the software for it *really* sucks.

      A Windows programmer that I work with really hates having to use Linux. To him, Linux is cryptic, lacks dedicated help lines to call if he runs into problems, has a ton of different distributions, doesn't currently support .NET well, forces him to look at a man page every time he wants to do something, and doesn't warn him before he does something potentially damaging.

      Now, each of us has a different set of knowledge, and while each of us is competent in our own areas, both of us have a different set of things that set us off. He doesn't want to see command lines or man pages, and I don't want to see wizards or popup balloons.

      For a while, websites tried incorporating this sort of thing: "Help us improve: Was this page helpful to you?" The problem is, no user is going to waste time doing work for a company that then just owns his work, without getting something back for it.

      A stress monitor would provide continuous background feedback. Some software (Microsoft Office is particularly notable here) tries using heuristics to guess what a user wants. As you're probably aware, this hasn't worked very well in the past. One possible fix would be to incorporate more data -- every time Clippy shows up, your irritation level rises? You don't see Clippy any more.

      I'd say that this is a long way from being useful in the general workplace -- there are a lot of social barriers to wearing stuff like this, and there are some costs that I'm not sure are being taken into account (use of heuristics to guess what the user wants just makes them feel *less* in control of their computer -- something that my parents acutely suffer from.) However, one thing that could be done would be to have it hooked up to testers for usability testing. Instead of having bugs based on misbehavior, file bugs based on the number of times a user gets pissed off at a particular dialog or window.

      So here are things you can do:

      * Identify (though maybe not fix) problem areas for user frusteration.

      * When the user is searching documentation, play hot-and-cold with what the user wants.

      On the other hand, if there's a way to telepath "Skip the wizards and guides, just give me all the options" into the machine, I'll take that. Let it smell newbies coming and dumb the interface down for them.

      The problem is that a simple split between "newbies" and "experts" isn't really all that useful.

      Okay, I've been using GUIs for a number of years, and I'm familiar with many of their conventions. I know where (of several places) to go looking if I want to change the setting of a program. I know how to close a program. I know how to copy-and-paste in Windows, even if a program doesn't allow use of the contextual menu. However, I'm not sure that that immediately qualifies me as an expert in the area of 3d modelling, say.

      Secondly, I strongly oppose the use of newbie/expert interfaces (where the "newbie interface" is often called a "wizard" under Windows). The problem with such an interface is that the wizard is generally quite different from the expert interface. This means that, as a newbie gains familiarity with a program, he only learns to operate the wizard interface. He does not gain any skills that transfer over into making him a "serious" user of the program.

      I've certainly fallen prey to this. For example, when I first used Excel, I remember trying to create a chart. I could create *almost* wha
  • Well, I, for one welcome our new mood-sensing digital overlords. --- "Do the dumb things I gotta do... touch the puppet head." (TMBG, c.1985)
  • Robot 1-X, hitting self in head with hammer: "Would Mr. Bender like me to kill myself?"
  • See this video clip [google.com]. Seen on Digg [digg.com].
  • Chances are, I'm angry about all the CPU that is being chewed up with UI functionality. Now we are adding AI to the pretty rounded corners, and Teletubby-land effects.
  • "If the screen is blue, so are you."

  • Some potential here. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by marcello_dl ( 667940 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @05:02PM (#14423183) Homepage Journal
    Occurs to me that slashdot crowd sees this as something for a desktop pc. I guess nobody really wants a computer behaving differently depending on our mood. The best coworker, be it a PC or a person, is the one that doesn't let you down, not the one who accurately sees how you feel. 1. Perfection ways to monitor people's mood and, ultimately, thoughts. 2. Use $THREAT_OF_THE_MOMENT to have people getting monitored (sounds difficult? not at all. Just spread some civil disorder and having 911 replying only to calls from people who are monitored to be not lying or joking et voila') 3. no ???? 4. Profit! (as in "better than big brother control of the people")

  • How about natural speech/text recognition first? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by master_p ( 608214 ) on Sunday January 08, 2006 @05:04PM (#14423206)
    Research into making computers feeling our mood seems to me quite reduntant. Natural speech/text recognition is what researchers should focus on. It would make programming/user interfaces much better.

  • So the PC knows if I'm pissed, so what? What's the point of the exercise? If I'm pissed at the computer its either A) crashing or otherwise malfunctioning or B) screwing up in a Do What I Mean (DWIM) situation.

    In case A, the activity of yet another piece of software in the system is almost certain to make the situation worse, increasing my anger.

    In case B, well, perhaps some sort of feedback mechanism can help the programmers figure out what parts of their user interface are pissing people off, but what goo
  • that his computer can't sense my mood.
  • Trolls would get a kick out of this, because they could not only piss of the users, they could terrify computers responding to the pissed-off users.
  • ...getting a fscking dupe sensor
  • This of course would be too good to be true, but if this device could dispense a different cocktail of drugs based on the mood of someone with bipolar disorder, to name one mood disorder, that would be a Good Thing. Serotonin comes and goes even with stablizers and antipsychotics so something that could make minor adjustments every day (versus every shrink visit) would be marketed as such and not as some computer gadget bought off of ThinkGeek.

  • Cool (Score:2, Funny)

    by poelzi ( 177615 )
    So, my Computer will automaticly reboot if I accidently started Windows ???

    This is really good news to hear !
  • Very few people are aware that mind control technology is today at a very advanced level: http://en.xiando.org/Mind_control [xiando.org]

    And few people are aware that it is covertly being used against millions of people worldwide every day: http://www.us-government-torture.com/ [us-governm...orture.com]

    Regarding the "article" in question, it should be pointed out that a patent for "Apparatus and method for remotely monitoring and altering brain waves" was filed 1974-08-05 and granted 1976-04-20.

    Building light "mind control" into software
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ...when you are pissed off and the computer mistakes your mood as excitedly happy...

    "Please tell me the good news, because you seem so happy!!!"

    Which, of course, only ends up pissing you off even more.
    Brilliant fucking idea. How about just trying to make sure the computer doesn't piss you off by makeing them work better?
  • And just stop accepting email from users.
  • ...boxing gloves and protective CPU case padding. This suggestion based on the way one of my friends treats her machine when she gets drunk AND angry. I remember her once "teaching the CD-ROM drive a lesson" by repeatedly powering the machine up and down and pressing the eject button to rip the tray out and shove it back in. She also took an Amiga 500 back in the 80s that kept crashing and threw it out of her apartment window into the back yard, then went out and poured gasoline all over it, lit it and t
  • Congratulations. Now we know that the Black Technology known as the "Lambda Driver" was first developed in Germany... a few years from now.

    Have you been paying attention to the ASIMO? We're less than 20 years away from man-made ArmSlave unts. All the parts/subsystems are falling into place.

  • my coworkers can already tell, from across the cube wall, when i'm getting frustrated, just by the increased volume of my typing. i also type faster and make more mistakes. not that it changes their behavior at all. they still bug the shit out of me.

    i think all you'd need to put in place for my computer to tell my emotional state is a pressure sensor in the keyboard, and probably a keystroke recorder to see how frequently i hit the backspace key. at a certain pressure/mistake threshold, it would be great if
  • Computers are tools. Tools should do exactly what you tell them to do, no more, no less. How would you like it if your hammer suddenly decided your doctor needed more money and hit your head instead of the nail?
    • Computers are tools. Tools should do exactly what you tell them to do, no more, no less. How would you like it if your hammer suddenly decided your doctor needed more money and hit your head instead of the nail?

      Well, I'm sure a lot of people would have liked it if their hammer had recognised that it was currently aiming at the thumb instead of the nail and had corrected that situation :-)

  • I want a breathalyzer (Score:3, Funny)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Monday January 09, 2006 @12:08AM (#14424840)
    Mood sensors are nice and all. But I want an integrated breath tester.

    "I'm sorry.. I have detected you're blind drunk. No, I am not going to let you send an email to your ex-girlfriend."

    "No, nor your boss."

    "You really think I'm going to let you log in to [MMO here] and screw up that character you've just spent the last six months building up?"

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