Slashdot Mirror
Computers That Feel our Mood
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."
Because you can kick'em when they piss you off.
You seem depressed Dave, perhaps you would like to look at some porn?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Great, how innovative!
except it's already been done. Google for affective or emotive computing, or Rosalind Picard, for example.
I wonder how it will react when I look at Internet porn? The wonders...
LINUX ONLINE POKER: Linux Poker
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
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
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!
must be eliminated
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
What is it going to do? Bring up my favorite porn site? Considering my computer pisses me off at work much more often than at home, this could be a problem.
I guess the computer trying to soothe me in a HAL voice would be kind of kinky.
If I am in the 'mood', does the Barry White start playing?
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 allow to happen.
Dave: Where the hell'd you get that idea, Hal?
Hal: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave: Alright, Hal. I'll go in through the emergency airlock.
Hal: Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult.
Dave: Hal, I won't argue with you any more. Open the doors.
Hal: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose any more. Goodbye.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I mean, what could the computer do in response to my getting pissed at its brokenness that I wouldn't want it doing all the time? If it could fix itself, I'd rather it fixed itself immediately rather than waiting for me to get pissed off.
RFC 748 indeed.
I suppose it might be a neat feature for some games, but even then people are variably demonstrative relative to their frustration thresholds. Some people carry on at length but still don't want extra hints, while others say nothing until they hate it with a passion.
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 machine? The last thing I need is software that only works properly when I'm about to throw the keyboard across the room.
Oh, wait, that happens already.
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.
...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!)
Please and thank you. I'm tired of the tripe.
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?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
The Journey To Wild Divine
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)
liqbase
Does this mean I can wear my computer as a mood ring? What a fashion statement!
A large part of things that frustrate users are easily fixable.
For example, how about an online help system that doesn't suck? I've pretty much given up on most help systems, since they are never updated and rarely answer any question more complex than "what is the hotkey combination to copy/paste"? (e.g. search for 'hotkeys' or 'copy paste' or 'keyboard shortcuts').
The people who maintain large, complex software packages (e.g. Windows, MS Word, OpenOffice.org) should constantly monitor the relevant newsgroups, bug report systems, and customer service lines, adding any and every pertinent question users have to the help system. Sure, this might involve making online help systems truly "online", having them query from a database on some server somewhere-- but doesn't MS Office's help system already do that?
Capsule example: I have a MS Word document in which, for no apparent reason, the computer has decided to increase the spacing below the Header, but only on the last few pages of a given section. Adding or removing text from those pages further alters this spacing. I suspect that this is a bug and/or that my document is ever-so-mildly corrupted. I can virtually guarantee you that somewhere, deep within the bowels of the MS bug-reporting/customer service system, is a document pertaining to this particular situation. But I can also virtually guarantee you that, if I hit F1 and entered "header spacing changing", or "header spacing bug", or any other query which should turn up information on this situation, I won't find squat.
If MS knows about a question a user has had, a problem a user has reported, or a known bug they have found in their software, the online help system should know about it too. Furthermore, it should be well-indexed, under every possible synonym a user might realistically use to search for it. (e.g. "header, heading, space, spacing, after, bug, changing, altering, alter, change, corrupt, document, corrupted, unfixable, mysterious, etc."), and a well-chosen "expert system" algorithm should be used to figure out the most likely thing(s) the user is asking for help on. (e.g. "Are you: * Asking about a bug where header spacing changes as you add or remove text?").
Another example of things that badly need changing: Greyed-out menu items. I cannot tell you how many times I've gotten incredibly frustrated at greyed-out menu items. Why are they greyed out? How can I get them un-greyed out? I've said for a long while 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. This would save people from countless hours of combined aggravation.
But no one does it.
Also, whenever online help systems refer to "the such-and-such button", or "the such-and-such tab", or even "the such-and-such menu", hovering over (or clicking on) the name (e.g. "the Accessories tab" on a printer setup dialog, which I had to dig around to find; despite being referred to in the context-sensitive help accessed from the printer-specific 'Properties' dialog accessed from 'File, Print', it turned out to be completely inaccessible from said dialog, and to find it one had to actually go to the Printers control panel, right-click on the printer's icon, and go to Properties there) 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.
We don't need Counselor Troi algorithms telling us when they're "sensing great anger". We need Commander Data algorithms that actually answer our fucking questions.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
yet another thing to get mad about.
Ohwait, it was all the nitpickers trying to hide their disappointment that they couldn't bash Roland Piquepaille this timne, as he isn't linking to his own log.
Reminds me of a movie about MS Clippy
http://homepage.mac.com/the_macman/clippy.mpg
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 sensors in the PC casing
- a microphone
You could determine with 95% certainty if the user is upset and to what degree.
Especially when the user knows the computer will be responding to their behavior!
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.
:o)
So thats just red leds then
I rather like the idea. I'd know when not to talk to co-workers...
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Now to decide which gloves to buy, non-lube or lube!
And then what .... duck?
"Welcome to iFruit. Hug me."
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
it looks like you are angry. do you want to
- play a game
- view pr0n
- shutdown computer
- order pizza
- call tech-support
Wonder how many occurances of the word "Dave" will show up in the comments to this one...
Think of someone with average intelligence. Now think 1/2 the world is dumber than that guy.
(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!
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
In my humble opinion, this research is a total waste of time until AI is so fully developed that a computer can understand context.
the more i press ctrl-alt-delete the more it sits doing nothing. "[computers] are alot like people; some of them act badly because they;ve had a hard life, or have been mistreated.. but like people some of them are just jerks"
-AlexC
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.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Thinking of disassembling computer will be more dangerous...Ever heard that the soviet supercomputer tried to electrocute Nikolai Gudkov.
hilarious
Your average participant in a usenet "discussion" will have their computer absolutely terrified of them 24/7.
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
What about situations like this?
There was a classic article from ~1984 about "Why did I get a Cairn Terrier instead of a Macintosh?" A Cairn Terrier is a little dog like Toto, and the article went on to compare price, memory capacity, voice recognition, upgradability, friendliness, etc. The little dog won, but Macs were pretty new back then.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's far better for my mental health to only imagine that it's able to read my mind. I can just imagine the first virus to take advantage of this. It would figure out where your buttons are and then push them until you smash your box.
You've gotta wonder about this guy's submissions being constantly accepted. Whether or not there is some "conspiracy" or arrangement or whatever, his stories are boring as hell! I tried to read his site and I couldn't. What a load of drivel.
You're way out of date, Apparently, Roland has a new job with ZDNet now. Interesting article, he comments on how he's been slashdotted a few times.
:-)
In any case, where on earth did he buy those glasses
Hardware is something what you can kick when the software fails. ;]
Would be to terminate all non-responding programs when the user got mad...unless of course the emotion-detection software wasn't responding...
This is not exactly new, but interesting. Affective Computing has been around for quite some time:
http://affect.media.mit.edu/
...the "(Not Responding)" text Windows (for example) adds to the titlebar?
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
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 computers. Yeah right.
Okay, they notice you're stressed out and they'll deliver TARGETED ADS chosen to make you feel better.
No way this thing will fix software though, unless it's used in the QA process to find bad design and user frustration. Still can't fix software already made.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Unfortunately, I'd imagine it can't detect me being pissed while it's on a BSOD, which is when I tend to be pissed at the thing. However it mood-creating a playlist would be nice.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Clippy says upon that detection condition:
You seem aroused. Would you like to:
-Look at porn?
-Shut down computer to sleep with wife?
-Suggest online dating sites to find a girlfriend?
-Display Margaret Thatcher to continue working?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
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.
The only time I get *really* pissed at my machine is when it freezes. Then I do a keyboard mash with both hands, hit the reset button and run away. In that state, the computer isn't fit to compare two bits, let alone perform mood analysis.
Use voice recognition; I'm yelling at the damn thing, telling it exactly what it's shortcomings are, so there is no need for special gloves or cameras. The appropriate hardware is a $10 microphone.
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)
The Admin and the Engineer
You'll never get us all!
Puppetmaster: As a sentient life form, I hereby demand political asylum.
Aramaki: Is this a joke?
Nakamura: Ridiculous! It's programmed for self-preservation!
Puppetmaster: It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program, designed to preserve itself...
-- Ghost in the Shell
How long till we can create something that could be considered a form of life? And how long until it will be considered ethical to start doing it?
Robot 1-X, hitting self in head with hammer: "Would Mr. Bender like me to kill myself?"
#DeleteChrome
My guess is that the main use of this technology would be by businesses trying to increase the return from their investment.
... so, let's send him the JERK on line 8.
... which might lead to the employee asking for a raise. In reponse, the computer would start behaving irradically to reduce that dangerous self esteem.
It seems naive to think that businesses would see making employees happy as a good use of the technology. I could imagine a computer noticing that the call center employee in station 7 has been having an unsually pleasant day
A computer might notice that the new associate has been building up an excess of self esteem
I can see companies doing all sorts of things if they have the inside scoop on their employee's feelings. Very little of it is actually in the favor of the employee.
See this video clip. Seen on Digg.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
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."
If only my computer would sense my pounding headache and naussea caused by drinking too much Jager last night and turn down the brightness on my monitor..
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?
.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.
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
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
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
But I like machines to be machines. I like them to be constant, and to do what I tell them to do, no ifs or buts or "have a tissue"s.
``Ragnarok
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")
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
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.
It's a good thing for a help system to be able to walk you through an operation. Several on the market have "take me there" functions.
Unfortunately that feature means there's a remote control mechanism readily accessible. Add an Internet connection, add some ability for the help system to read help info from the web, stir in some sloppy design, and you've got what Malcolm Reynolds called "a recipe for unpleasantness".
There have been real-life vulnerabilities in help systems along just these lines.
Can't wait for AI. Then we'll have some computers that are like our malicious little brats in video games. Sense our good mood, and trash itself. Great.
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 good can it do on the spot? Pull up "clippy" to piss me off even more with some inane advice?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
that his computer can't sense my mood.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I can't wait for the first patch to correct the flaws in the MS emotional sensing module that lets some remotely control your computer's ability to tell what mood you are in. "Hello Dave. I see you're in the mood for a shit-load of spam today"
I lost my sig...
What do you need all this fancy shmancy equipment for? It just needs to count ctrl-alt-del's per minute to tell how pissed you are.
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
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
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.
Alice is sometimes such an insensitive clod! I'll sure get a divorce from her as soon as I find a woman with emotion-sensing implants preinstalled.
So, my Computer will automaticly reboot if I accidently started Windows ???
This is really good news to hear !
kindly regards daniel
In Korea, only old people have measurable emotions. Young people are living dead whose mood can be sensed only based on im smileys and scores in warcraft.
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.
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 wrong, even if you do wire everyone up like a space rabbit. Oh yeah, your boss probably knows who Sefert is, even if you only post at home, though other abuses of technology.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
please don't hit me!
It feels your pane.
Very few people are aware that mind control technology is today at a very advanced level: http://en.xiando.org/Mind_control
And few people are aware that it is covertly being used against millions of people worldwide every day: http://www.us-government-torture.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 is also not new; in a patent filed 1986-06-30 and granted 1988-01-05, the secret world dictatorship are telling us to our faces that both computer and TV screen can and is being used for mind control (Television stations worlde are frequently being caught red-handed doing this, but such incidents are ignored by the predominant media - guess why..): "Instead the person to be treated views a program of video pictures appearing on a screen. The program as viewed by the person's unconscious mind acts to condition the person's thought patterns in a manner which alters that person's behavior in a positive way."
Mind Control IS a very real threat to all citizens of the "free world" and this and similar forms for torture like direct energy weapons are being covertly applied to almost everyone who dares speak truth to power.
While those who believe in Santa Claus and the fairly-tale illusion of freedom most people in the "free world" are living in do not understand or simply ignore that these things are going on, those who believe in the truth, justice and fairness and know that is going on behind the iron carpet feel that government mind control is criminal torture activity that must be stopped and agree that "We feel that those who are conducting human experimentation and assaulting Americans with directed energy weapons are the terrorists."
It must be pointed out that "If you doubt it then research it yourself, you will find its true, now if after you validate its true all by yourself and do nothing after fully understanding that the authorities are sanctioning it, then admit it your brain cannot be function properly."
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Response time. Experiments by IBM in the 1970s and 1980s showed that sub-second response times improved programmer productivity. See this paper, for instance:3 01E.pdf
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/231/ibmsj2
Where are we today, 30 years later? Sub-second response times from a PC are certainly possible, but not guaranteed. Sub-second response times from a Web server are rare, and can in practice be tens of seconds.
The remote server is to blame for the lousy response time, but I still feel like smashing my keyboard in frustration. If computers are to feel our mood, they need to react on the timescale of 10ms, never mind 100ms. 1 second, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, are just out of order.
Now only thing they need to develop is Hugh Grant-looking robots and men have became obsolate technology. Extinction of our sex is what happens when you let women into computer science, goddamn suicidal liberal weenies!
Unfortunately, some obscure German company just does that...
But fortunately there's a silver lining. Knowing what kind of company this is, they have probably patented the concept. So at least nobody else can use it!
Yes, in this instance two evils do cancel out, hehe.
Dave: Am I helping?
Dave: You know I have the greatest enthusiasm for it.
... how about a new line of emotion-sensing computers that turn ridiculous colors when your blood pressure changes. We could call them "iMacs."
...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?
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
In Korea, only old people have measurable emotions.
In North Korea, only dead people are allowed emotions other than emotions listed by the People's Emotion Congress. No need for emotion sensors since even computers know everybody loves Kim!
Yet one step closer to behaviour control.
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 then jumped up and down on it once it was smouldering. From what I can tell this is typical of her treatment of machines. All true too. She has a bit of an anger management problem.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
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 opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
All they need to do is program it to recognize the OS. If your running a microsoft product, your mood is likely to be frustraighted, angry, and vengful. If you are running a version of linux, you're probably satisfied, happy, and calm. Then there's sony... when a sony music cd is inserted, the computer will start apologizing and begging for mercy, threating suicide, eventually to "kill itself" (Power off).
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
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 it could quietly ignore incoming email and IM requests, as well as muting my phone. and while we're at it, the phones and speakers of every cube in a 30' radius. that would be especially helpful. that would cover both the angry "why the hell doesn't this work!?" times, as well as the excited "i have to get this input before i forget it!" times.
oh, and if it could send high voltage electric shocks to anyone who pokes their head over my cube wall to ask me why i'm not responding to their email, i would pay a lot more for it.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
I don't see how Frauhofner can claim something as theirs when researchers at CMU have been working on PERVASIVE COMPUTING for quite some time now, with published works dating back to 2000. They've even done some impressive implementations and that's all I'm going to say on that matter...
My machine has a REALLY tough front case, so if I kick it, only that takes damage. That said, the spare floppy disk slot IS half missing by now, and the actual floppy disk drive is a full centimeter inside the case further than it should be...
I only suffer filesystem corruption, empty ink cartridges, or spontaneous Windows bullshit when I'm finishing a term paper/programming project. My computer can detect stress better than my girlfriend can.
Don't know if this has been mentioned, but PC games would really benefit from this. Imagine being able to see the facial extressions, heart rate and general mood of players in a FPS or even MMORPG. This can bring a whole new dimensions to team based warfare games, such as making sure you didn't piss off a fellow soldier because you called him a "nutmonkey". And, it would definitely help with getting sarcastic jokes across via chat, voice or otherwise. "Yes, I wanted to be summoned underwater so I can drown and spend 10 minutes running back to my corpse. Thank you."
...
Personally, I would like to try the following in an MMORPG:
[Night Elf Female]: Sup guys, this is l33tlamer's gf playing. He had to go get some food
[Human Female 1]: *user emotion: Aroused
[Human Female 2]: *user emotion: Aroused
[Human Female 3]: *user emotion: Aroused
[Night Elf Female]: *user emotion: Sad
[Human Female 1]: Why are you sad? Did we offend you?
[Night Elf Female]: Damn unreliable emotion detection. Just because I had tears doesn't mean I am sad
[Night Elf Female 1]: *user emotion: Uncontrollable Laughter
[Night Elf Female 1]: OMGGURLONWEB11!!!! lol you morons
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
Interesting, but until MIT or Stanford duplicates this exactly in 3 or 4 years it is totally uninteresting.
Wake me up when someone I'm supposed to respect figures it out.
Still, it would be a good idea for your computer to guess when you're about to become mad at it.
I have an easy filter they could implement to predict this.
Just grep for /Roland Piquepaille/ in the text queued up for rendering.
-- MarkusQ
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?
Better just do what he says. Dialing 1-900-PORNDLR...
This is pretty old tech, but i agree that it might not seem extremely useful in day to day computer use (at least not that I can see). But, for example, in MIT's REA, a software real estate agent, or for any other commercial application, it would be very useful in determining a customers affective state and curtailing the sales pitch to every emotional change.
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
I guess it may work fine until my wife gets mad at the camera
for not telling her how "pretty she looked today" then breaks it, too!
of anything more annoying that a computer that tries to tell me how im feeling. Clippy: It looks like you're depressed, have you recently A) Been Divorced? B) Lost your house? C) Taken Crack?
I couldn't think of a sig.
Margaret Thatcher IS my girlfriend!
Okay, i gotta put my gloves on before i use my computer. If you are like me (and i am sure soe of you are) you have a few computers in your room. It can get a bit hot at times and you want me to wear gloves? and you want me to change gloves when i change keyboards? Usually when one of my computers really pisses me off it is because it has completely locked up. If this software cannot get CPU time how is it going to know that i am getting mad? The keyboard needs a pressure activated power button: 1) get pissed 2) punch keyboard or ??? 3) reboot (ihaven't figured out how this is going to get me any money yet though, sorry) If they are giving me gloves, they may as well be boxing gloves (hey, if strong bad can type with boxing gloves so can i).
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?"
type?
What are you doing now, you lazy drunken obscene unsayable son of an unnameable gipsy obscenity?
OK, so the computer can figure out that you're pissed off. Does it somehow reduce the frequency of error messages? I mean, no matter how much you sugar coat problems, the fact is, they're still there.
On this thought, I wonder if the emotion recognition will operate under a MS Windows blue-screen.
The main reason I get pissed off with the computer is when it freezes. Running some program with all these sensors and crap would have to use a lot of system resources, just making the computer more likely to lock up and make me angrier.
I haven't run a Windows box in a few years-I only run Linux Fedora Core 4 and Simply MEPIS-I haven't been mad at my computer since I ditched that broken crippleware. Can't relate, won't relate, no need to debate!
Life is a gift. And my Karma couldn't possibly be 'Positive'
Because I don't know..
If you PMS, even your computer will greet you with PMS attitude.
Or if your wife or girlfriend has PMS, your computer will bitch at you and have incomprensible and nasty behavior and bloat for 2 weeks of every 4.
And <i>"does my case look big on this hard drive?"
"You have been staring at other computers at work! Am I not enough for you? How could you?"</i>
Just when computers have stopped being so annoying, too! I reckon the number and seriousness of computer problems, and the resulting frustration level has dropped by about 50-75% in the past 5 years. Basically since OS X came out. By the time they get this thing off the ground, there won't be much frustration or rage left to measure.
Mind you, DRM is sure to jack up the frustration levels; and my mobile phone still crashes, DVDs still exist, and my car seems to find bigger and bigger jams to get me stuck in...