A Smart Phone That Knows You’re Angry

by Duncan Graham-Rowe,  MIT Technology Review

Samsung has developed a prototype emotion detection system for smartphones. Rather than use specialized sensors or cameras, the system monitors certain inputs, such as the speed at which a user types, how often the backspace or special symbol buttons are pressed, and how much the smartphone shakes.

Normal cell phone use enables the system to postulate the emotional state of the user, says Samsung researcher Hosub Lee. The system is designed to work as part of a Twitter client on an Android-based Samsung Galaxy S II, enabling people in a social network to view symbols of emotions alongside tweets. The system has to be trained to work with each individual user.

The software’s machine-learning algorithms currently offer detection with an accuracy of 67.5 percent, but the technology can be improved with more training data. “Emotion recognition technology will be an entry point for elaborate context-aware systems for future consumer electronics devices or services,” Lee says. “If we know the emotion of each user, we can provide more personalized services.”  Report

DCL: This is an application of event processing I did not foresee. The article doesn’t say what the “more personalized services” would be for an angry customer. Hate to think what United Airlines reservations system would do with me some of the time, if it knew how I felt.