Gizmodo: Emotions

Robots of the Future Will Show Empathy, Be Good Listeners

Elaine Chow — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:45:00 EDT

European researchers are developing a software that will give robots the power to learn when a person is sad, happy or angry. The Feelix Growing project is putting together simple robots that can detect different parameters—facial expressions, voice and proximity—to determine emotional states. The aim of the project is to develop a robot that can serve humans with special needs, such as the ill and the elderly. Using adaptable neural networks, the robot can learn the correct way to respond to people's emotions from experience.

For instance, if someone shows fear, the robot can learn to change its behavior to appear less threatening. If someone seems happy, the robot can make a mental (or, I guess, digital) note of what brought on that response. And if someone seems upset and lonely, the robot can give her a pat on the back, offer her a stiff drink and say "Elaine, you deserved someone better than that dickwad anyhow."

I, for one, welcome our new emotionally adept overlords. [Physorg]

Nexi, The Social Robot From MIT Goes For the Emo Look

Kit Eaton — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:50:47 EDT

She may look miles away from crossing uncanny valley, but Nexi from MIT's Personal Robots Group is at least on the way. She's designed to be a "Mobile Social Dextrous" machine that moves like we do when we express emotions. So, she's got fully articulated arms and a head with features that can be motored around to form expressions. Acting out emotions, she's actually rather amazing, in a slightly sad robot kinda way: the video may send a few chills down your spine, no matter how "artificial" Nexi looks now.

Nexi is apparently about the size of a three year-old child, with dextrous hands, arms that can lift up to ten pounds of weight and two-wheel balancing movement, a little like a Segway. Each eye has a color camera, there's an IR camera in the forehead for 3D object perception and four microphones so sounds can be localized.

For now, Nexi is just a prototype, designed to explore human-machine interactions and social learning. It's not too hard to imagine a real product based on the design, though, is it? The team forsee robots like this having a role in healthcare, eldercare and education. [GizmoWatch]

Exmocare BT2 Allows Your Employers To Monitor Your Emotions, Arousal Level

Jason Chen — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:00:07 EDT

Exmocare's released emotion-monitoring watches before, but this BT2 model seems to be directed at the service industry, meaning that bosses can use these wristbands to monitor their employee's emotional states. The control panel (screenshot after the jump) displays a summary of each person's heart rate, location, body temperature and skin moisture levels reported by an individual's device. If you thought your boss didn't know when you were looking at porn while you were supposed to be working, well, think again. And in our case, the watches would probably break from overuse, thanks to our constant state of arousal. [Exmocare via io9]

Philips Patents Expressive Pen That Writes Out Your Mood

Kit Eaton — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:15:02 EST

The designers at Philips have been busy "emotionizing" their products, what with the cuddly Aurea TVs, and their emotional reactive jewelry. Now they have got designs on the humble pen, with a patented invention for a writing implement that actually records the mood of the writer while they're writing stuff. Its finger contact sensors detect give-aways like heartbeat, skin temperature and the pressure you exert on pen and paper, which it then uses to actually morph the look of the ink stroke:

While a biro may be a fantastic at scribbling notes, Philips thinks that they can actually increase your self-expression with this device. By processing data from the skin sensors, the pen switches flow from different ink canisters and uses actuators to modify the pen nib, allowing for different colors, stroke widths, styles and even ink flow continuity (presumably for that scratched-out-blobby desperate note to loved ones).

Since your emotions are given away by things like skin conductivity and heartbeat—after all, that's how lie detectors work—this idea may one day end up as reality. Future documents of historical note may yet be signed with such a pen, giving away how nervy the signatories are and "Dear John" letters may never be the same again. I can't wait for the keyboard version.[Philips Patent via New Scientist]