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."

Comments

Mood?

[Strange Ranger]

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.

Re:Give it a chance

[jheath314]

> I've seen enough negative comments on this subject. Are there any other positive uses that people can imagine?

There's a reason why the prevailing reaction to these sorts of technologies is negative... they tend to follow a paradigm of making the device "smart", when what most people actually want is for the device to be "obedient". The former tends to take control away from the user, with the device altering its behavior whether the user wants it to or not.

For example, whenever I remove the key from my car's ignition, the driver's seat moves back automatically (presumably to make it easier for an obese person to get in and out.) The "feature" annoys the crap out of me, and it became even more irritating when I once had stuff stowed behind that seat, which the seat proceeded to crush. I've tried to disable it, but it doesn't appear to be optional. I've had to adapt my behavior in where I stow things to accommodate the damn thing, rather than the other way around. It's not the end of the world, but it annoys me enough that I'd never buy another car with that "feature" again.

I don't want my phone to predict my mood, or second-guess me, or arbitrarily alter its behavior without me telling it to. I don't want my phone to be my companion... I want it to be my dutiful slave.