Have you ever sat across a date and think to yourself, “Yeap, I’ve got this; he/she is totally digging me!” but only to find out how dead wrong you were? How about if there were glasses, that when you put on, would tell you how the other person is reacting to what you’re saying, and you could tell if they were disagreeing with you, even though verbally they’re not saying a thing? Sounds like science fiction doesn’t it, but it may soon become a reality.
Rosalind Picard of MIT and Rana el Kaliouby at the University of Cambridge, UK have worked together and created a gadget that is said to be able to read the emotional state of a person. It uses a pair of glasses and a tiny camera along with a card-sized computer. The camera is used to “see” the person you’re talking to, and the computer will then calculate, according to that person’s expressions, how they are responding to you. A LED light in the glasses will flash green or red, with green obviously meaning that there are positive feelings, and red may imply negative feelings. A headphone is also used to give verbal feedback.
If anyone has seen the show “Lie To Me”, whereby the main character is able to tell what the other person is thinking/feeling by micro-expressions in their face and body language, it looks like this gadget is pretty similar, except that now anyone can do it. We’re not sure if they have plans to make this a commercially viable product, although if it were, it would sure take a lot of fun out of getting to know a person.
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