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Intel CTO Says Future Phones Will Sense Your Mood
An anonymous reader writes "Ultra-smartphones that react to your moods and televisions that can tell it's you who's watching are in your future as Intel Corp's top technology guru sets his sights on context-aware computing. Chief technology officer Justin Rattner stuffed sensors down his socks at the annual Intel Develop Forum in San Francisco on Wednesday to demonstrate how personal devices will one day offer advice that goes way beyond local restaurants and new songs to download. 'How can we change the relationship so we think of these devices not as devices but as assistants or even companions?' he asked."
Will it show calming pictures on the screen while I'm raging at customer service?
We have gone long past ridiculous in what we are having our "phones" do (and why do we even bother to call them phones anymore). Sheesh. A mood phone? I thought mood items went out in the 80s.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
"phone call from 'grandma', mood 'horny', press here to accept call"
warning pointless sig
I think this is another example of how C-level execs are out of touch with what people actually want. Nobody wants a phone that won't answer phone calls because it believes it senses you're angry and doesn't want you to say something you'll regret.
Seriously, we don't want AI in our fucking phone. This isn't the first time I've seen this kind of disconnect, and it certainly won't be the last.
I had a simpler answer, best illustrated by the following:
Two men were coming back from the mountains after 6 months of panning for gold. After settling up, getting some drink and fine ladies of the hour, they began purchasing provisions to go right back to work on their claim.
Towards the end the shopkeeper winked at them and said, "I think you boys have forgot these...". In their hands were two planks of wood, which each a hole lined with the softest deer fur. Not much else needed to be said and the two men were on their way.
6 months later the shopkeeper was laying out provisioning for one of them and asked, "say where's your friend?". The man replied, "Bastard took my plank one night, so I kilt him".
The moral of the story is that if we want to have a more emotional connection with our devices we might want to start figuring out how to get blowjobs from them. At that point, I would say we would be pretty damned attached to them.
My mood does not reflect the list of things that I need to get done.
When I can ask my phone, just by talking into it, to schedule a meeting, invite certain people, then comb the news to see if traffic will a be worry tonight, and also send my wife a text message apologizing for being late, then report back when it's done, THEN I'll have a digital assistant. Software has barely tapped the ability to serve us with the input we're already giving it. Adding bio-sensor input and "mood detection" now is just a bell/whistle that isn't helpful to me. It's helpful to so many sales channels of which I am the target.
Now if we had these "real digital assistants" then mood awareness would be a true achievement. The text apology to my wife would make her smile lovingly while shedding a single tear.
But seriously, Intel should invest it's billions more into software. Fuel real demand for hardware rather than pimping out yet more bells and whistles.
I guess medical and fitness uses will be pretty advantageous.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
There are technologies that we take for granted today that would have seemed preposterous only a few years ago. For example - if someone told me five years go that Google was working on technology to predict what I am searching for, and display the results before I can finish typing - my response would have been "I'll believe it when I see it". Now, after using real-time search for a week, I am sure there will be a time when I expect every search engine to deliver results in real time as I type.
I can understand being skeptical about the "mood sensing mobile phones" being discussed in this article. But to get all bent out of shape about a technology that doesn't even exist yet, and that you will not be obligated to use if it ever is created - I just don't see the point.
After thinking about this technology for a couple minutes, here's one potential use that I might like to see. If you're driving and listening to music at the same time, and the device senses that you are overwhelmed with information (you're lost, for example, and looking for a specific street) - it could lower the volume on your radio to help you think. Nothing earth shattering - just a simple incremental improvement over my car radio today, which is smart enough to raise and lower the volume based on my current speed (another example of a feature I never thought I needed, but appreciate, and will expect to have in any car I buy from now on).
I've seen enough negative comments on this subject. Are there any other positive uses that people can imagine?