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Microsoft Research Adds 'Mood Detection' To Smartphones
angry tapir writes "Researchers at Microsoft Research have produced a prototype software system that can be used on smartphones to infer a user's mood. The 'MoodScope' system produced by researchers uses smartphone usage patterns to determine whether someone is happy, calm, excited, bored or stressed and could potentially add a new dimension to to mobile apps (as well as, as the researchers note, open up a Pandora's Box of privacy issues). The researchers created a low-power background service for iPhones and Android handsets that (with training) can offer reasonable detection of mood and offers and API that app developers could hook into."
When I'm sad will I suddenly see lots of adds for antidepressant?
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Automatic text to law enforcement if intoxicated and in motion greater than 10 MPH, complete with location coordinates and picture from phone camera. You will have to agree to this when you get your phone. Having a phone is a privilege, not a right.
Dear Microsoft, I don't want my phone to know what I eat for breakfast, how I'm feeling or how I choose to spend my time. I just need it to make phone calls and check my email. That's it. That's all.
Can you please stop being such a creepy digital stalker? It's gone well past disturbing at this point.
Nothing else left to say.
I currently own both an iPad and and Nexus tablet ... and if Microsoft thinks I'd be willing to install any of their shit on them, they're sadly mistaken.
WTF would I want my phone to know anything about my mood for? And why should I trust Microsoft with the data? They'll just roll over and hand it to the NSA anyway.
Microsoft Research has specialized in making shit nobody has wanted for years. Pity they couldn't focus on making products people actually want.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
and you would be connected to a person if it detected you were angry. What happened to that? I get angry when I need to talk to a person and the phone tree doesn't offer that option, but I have never been connected to a person as a result. That's what I want, when you detect I am swearing, connect me to a person damnit!
... I bet it defaults to 'pretty angry' and 'fucking windows' moods.
Pshaw. We know all it's doing is changing color based on our body temperature! Chris Petrila fooled me with this in the first grade, and I won't let Microsoft fool me with it now!
Everything is better with chainsaws.
This could be useful if the robot lady in Google Maps understood to STFU when I started yelling at her.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
They don't make a version for their own phone OS?
Try it! Library of Babel
Microsoft's version of Seri.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
We sense that re-arranging your icons made you angry...we will find them again, trust us :)
In NSA America social networks join you!
It's just a smartphone version of the mood rings that were popular in the '70s.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
If this feature catches wind, they can develop some "cool app" which uses the mood information, and which, surprise surprise, does the processing on the server side, giving yet another data point for sucking all data from my personal life.
The researchers created a low-power background service for iPhones and Android handsets
I guess they had to drop the Windows phone variant, as the moods only varied between 'disappointed' and 'highly annoyed'.
Can it detect my apathy?
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
From Article:
Using a "hybrid" model that incorporated data from other users, after 10 days 72 per cent accuracy could be achieved.
So I'm reading this as "The new mood detection system is about as accurate as the Human 'reading of minds' or search engine optimization."
Windows 10 is flopping. Surface is too expensive. MS Bob didn't turn out so well.
This will sell to the tune of billions. Fer Sher.
/snark
"MoodScope detects that you are sad because you are using Windows". "MoodScope will attempt to Bing for remedies...."
What mood are you in when you're not eating your own dogfood, MS?
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
come on now, its a reasonable application of tech.
If I may...
if (user_sex==male)
$mood = "HORNY"
else $mood=$mgic8ball(rnd)
echo "User is having trouble with Microsoft product and is FUCKING PISSED!! and" $mood
Also if it can detect other people's mood... i can finally know when to ask my wife certain questions
I can see a subtle difference in my expectations, depending on my mood.
When I'm in a good mood, I just want my smart phone to do what I tell it to do.
When I'm in a bad mood, my phone damn well better do exactly what I tell it to do, if it knows what's good for it.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Consumer: I feel happy! I feel happy!
Windows Phone: You're not fooling anyone you know.
I can see it now. My phone displays a message stating something to the effect of "It seems like you're having a bad day. Why don't you take a break and relax", shortly before I throw it at the wall as hard as possible. Then I quickly get a new phone without the new "feature".
[Flags]
public enum Moods
{
FeckedOffWithWindows,
WishingTheydBoughtAnIPhone,
WishingTheydBoughtAnAndroid,
}
Fortunately, all they were able to get working correctly was the 'Frustrated' mood detection. So it should work flawlessly.
It'll be all sorts of weird colors for a few months, and then it'll turn black and stay that way.
The 'MoodScope' system produced by researchers uses smartphone usage patterns to determine whether someone is happy, calm, excited, bored or stressed ...
This should be easy to implement on a Windows Phone because whenever I use a Microsoft product, I generally end up "angry". To be fair, I had the same emotional result when I tried using Unity...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Oh hell yeah sign me up I want M$ to have a detailed records of my moods over a span of years so it can
1) be used against me in a court of law somehow (are you prone to anger? are you moody ? Mr. Maykabuck , are you an expert in mood disorders and what can you tell us about the defendant from this record? )
2) be used to deny me a job, without me ever knowing !
3) used to compromise me in some other way I am not creative enough to think of..
Naww.. what am I worry about....M$ would never do that....
you see, they are working on a shielding system which when activated in flight...
They will probably call it 'Airplane mode', to reduce confusion.
... deploying the protection shield
What would a Windows phone use as a protection shield? A fake Android start-up screen?
I forsee that in ten years, computers tracking my behavior will be able to tell me I have some disease, but the doctor will not be able to spot it. Except perhaps if the cloud will spam him with targeted pharma advertisements.