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Intel Handhelds

Intel CTO Says Future Phones Will Sense Your Mood 127

Posted by samzenpus from the love-your-phone-and-it-will-loive-you-back dept.
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."
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Intel CTO Says Future Phones Will Sense Your Mood More

Intel CTO Says Future Phones Will Sense Your Mood

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  • Can it sense emotions? (Score:4, Funny)

    by acnicklas ( 1740146 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:09PM (#33595626)
    Will it show calming pictures on the screen while I'm raging at customer service?

  • Long Past Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkKnightRadick ( 268025 ) <the_spoon.geo@yahoo.com> on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:09PM (#33595628) Homepage Journal

    We have gone long past ridiculous in what we are having our "phones" do (and why do we even bother to call them phones anymore). Sheesh. A mood phone? I thought mood items went out in the 80s.

    • I'm confused too. I was convinced Microsoft had the patent on feature creep, and I don't remember hearing about them licensing it out to the cellphone companies.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by txoof ( 553270 )

        Here comes Clippy, Cell Phone edition! It's a new extortion strategy. Clippy senses your anger at it's inability to do anything and offers you a sweet deal: $9.99 to automatically shut him off.

    • Give it a chance (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gregrah ( 1605707 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @10:47PM (#33596198)
      There are technologies that we take for granted today that would have seemed preposterous only a few years ago. For example - if someone told me five years go that Google was working on technology to predict what I am searching for, and display the results before I can finish typing - my response would have been "I'll believe it when I see it". Now, after using real-time search for a week, I am sure there will be a time when I expect every search engine to deliver results in real time as I type.

      I can understand being skeptical about the "mood sensing mobile phones" being discussed in this article. But to get all bent out of shape about a technology that doesn't even exist yet, and that you will not be obligated to use if it ever is created - I just don't see the point.

      After thinking about this technology for a couple minutes, here's one potential use that I might like to see. If you're driving and listening to music at the same time, and the device senses that you are overwhelmed with information (you're lost, for example, and looking for a specific street) - it could lower the volume on your radio to help you think. Nothing earth shattering - just a simple incremental improvement over my car radio today, which is smart enough to raise and lower the volume based on my current speed (another example of a feature I never thought I needed, but appreciate, and will expect to have in any car I buy from now on).

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

      • Re:Give it a chance (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jheath314 ( 916607 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @11:28PM (#33596418)

        > 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.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by LongearedBat ( 1665481 )
          The summary being... "New features are good, as long as the user can control their use."

          Could someone please mod both parent and grand-parent up, please? They're both good points and I have no mod points.

        • The title car (in the book, not the movie) behaved like that. It was full of gadgets and whistles, but when it (she?) though one was useful at the current situation it wouldn't (well, almost never) launch it on its own. It just flashed some light over the appropriate handle in the control panel, and the decision to activate the feature was on the driver. Children loved it.

          This is how well-mannered smart agents should behave (and no, a giant paper clip talking about nonsense does not qualify).

          • Entirely my point. Phones have become companions. I'm even over the phone not being just a phone anymore (well I'm not but we're way past that point too), just quit trying to second-guess me. I guess someone would like this, but I definitely would not and do not know anyone who reasonably would.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by doesnothingwell ( 945891 )

        incremental improvement over my car radio today, which is smart enough to raise and lower the volume based on my current speed

        It's probably been done wrong unless it has a knee at some speed, increase the volume to legal speed and decreasing above. Driving at 100mph or more I find the radio is best turned off or set to low volume classical music. An alarm that says "too fucking fast" or "have you finished those funeral arrangements yet?" would be better.

      • No. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sarkeizen ( 106737 )
        Your thesis may be correct but your example seems moronic. Google realtime search actually doesn't appear to "predict" what I'm looking for but rather just updates my search page while it's idle. Google does provide auto-completion which is essentially an index of your prior searches and some list of prior search others have done. I don't see how an index into a list (or an updating screen) would have been so incomprehensible to you (or anyone) five years ago (especially considering that fifteen years

  • Meego related? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by aliquis ( 678370 )

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQCoCnSHq94 [youtube.com]

    Nokia always talked about feeling pulse and what not. Plus they and Siemens got that TV stuff going and it would be quite obvious they know who's watching that way I guess.

    But maybe Intel is just talking in general / will sell sensors for everyone / whatever. But atleast Meego is still a joint Nokia and Intel (Is it just open-source or open for any player to join in and release their own Meego phones if they wanted to?)

  • I can imagine my phone ringing and saying,

    "Hey, Kevin, I just noticed you're headed to The Pub. Um, it might not be a good idea to be drinking right after that breakup. Just sayin'..."

    • Obligatory. [youtube.com]

      Also, here's the specs [youtube.com] if you're interested.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Jedi Alec ( 258881 )

      What would be the point of that?

      Now what might be *useful* is for the phone to:
      1. Call some of your friends to drink along with you.
      2. Call an escort to cheer you up.
      3. Call a cab to get you home at the end of the evening.

      That way *you* get a fun evening(or at least a better one than sitting by yourself drinking) and the phone company gets to bill you for 3 additional calls leading to

      4. Profit!

  • Mmmm, yeah (Score:3, Informative)

    by BonquiquiShiquavius ( 1598579 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:12PM (#33595646) Journal
    Do not want!

  • as "personal assistant" and what not has already started in Japan in full force.

    Here's few of the "your phone is your friend" idiotic commercials from this year:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIIQK1bUQzg [youtube.com]
    (the pink body is the phone)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5FIiu7xkcI [youtube.com]
    (ken watanabe is the phone)

    There were a few more, all playing the theme "your phone is your best friend".

    I've no doubt this will do miracles for the improvement of the communication skills of everyone - waiting for your phone to guess the

  • great idea (Score:4, Funny)

    by monkyyy ( 1901940 ) <crazymonkyyy@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:16PM (#33595674)
    "phone call from 'grandma', mood 'horny', press here to accept call"

  • Mood is a thing for cattle and love play. It's not for cell phones.

  • Answer (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dissy ( 172727 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:19PM (#33595702)

    'How can we change the relationship so we think of these devices not as devices but as assistants or even companions?' he asked."

    Put me in control of what it does, what info I see, and what info it shares with whom, and I might call it a personal assistant.

    As long as the control remains with the media companies, it is a spam assistant plain and simple, and it's only goal is to aid in selling my eyeballs off to the highest bidder for someone's profit.

    I say the answer is simple, I just don't think they want to hear it or care about implementing it in that way.

    • Like all advertising, it will first earn your trust and make you believe that you are in control. It will then begin to subvert you, changing your behavior, subtly at first, based on the psychological profile that the mothership has compiled. Your trust in your gizmo will cause you to believe that the decisions it suggests are your own, as it begins to influence your decision-making and even your personality.

      Once upon a time there was paperwork involved in being part of experimental studies. In the age

    • Re:Answer (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EdIII ( 1114411 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:56PM (#33595932)

      How can we change the relationship so we think of these devices not as devices but as assistants or even companions?

      I had a simpler answer, best illustrated by the following:

      Two men were coming back from the mountains after 6 months of panning for gold. After settling up, getting some drink and fine ladies of the hour, they began purchasing provisions to go right back to work on their claim.

      Towards the end the shopkeeper winked at them and said, "I think you boys have forgot these...". In their hands were two planks of wood, which each a hole lined with the softest deer fur. Not much else needed to be said and the two men were on their way.

      6 months later the shopkeeper was laying out provisioning for one of them and asked, "say where's your friend?". The man replied, "Bastard took my plank one night, so I kilt him".

      The moral of the story is that if we want to have a more emotional connection with our devices we might want to start figuring out how to get blowjobs from them. At that point, I would say we would be pretty damned attached to them.

       

      • That's just not why phones have a 'vibrate' mode.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by c0lo ( 1497653 )

        The moral of the story is that if we want to have a more emotional connection with our devices we might want to start figuring out how to get blowjobs from them. At that point, I would say we would be pretty damned attached to them.

        Ah, clearly, I sense a mind of an engineer in the above... prone to generalization from anecdotal occurrences, confident the things can happen in predictable ways...

        I don't have answers, but only questions, illustrated by the following joke:

        The difference between a young kid and an old men: the kid believes Mr Dick is used only to take a leak; the old man is damned sure about it.

        The morals of the joke:

        • generalize and you will certainly miss opportunities (like: tunning the personal assistant to the way o

  • Just call it GPP (Genuine People Personalities) and be done with it.

    • Re:Great (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Macgrrl ( 762836 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:28PM (#33595750)

      The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With."

      The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes," with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent

      • It's interesting to note that a copy of Encyclopedia Galactica that fell through a wormhole from the future defines the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )
      This will all end in tears.

  • awesome (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Awesome, so as I work throughout my day talking to more and more customers, my computer will gradually start showing me gun shopping websites? sweet!

  • The brand new iShill! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Come get your new iShill today!* We promise you it will only give advice in your best interests.**

    *Message to prospective customers.
    **Message to shareholders.

  • Not this shit again.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ArcadeNut ( 85398 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:31PM (#33595782) Homepage

    Didn't we already learn that computers suck at context?

    Clippy anyone?

    That's right I used the "C" word!

  • Out of touch (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iONiUM ( 530420 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:33PM (#33595794) Journal

    I think this is another example of how C-level execs are out of touch with what people actually want. Nobody wants a phone that won't answer phone calls because it believes it senses you're angry and doesn't want you to say something you'll regret.

    Seriously, we don't want AI in our fucking phone. This isn't the first time I've seen this kind of disconnect, and it certainly won't be the last.

    • ELIZA: You seem angry iONiUM,
      ELIZA:would you like to talk about it?
      ?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by iONiUM ( 530420 )

        lol. EXACTLY. Anyways at that point I won't want to talk, I'll want to smash.

        • lol. EXACTLY. Anyways at that point I won't want to talk, I'll want to smash.

          At which point you then have to buy a new phone. I think we've identified the "profit" step in their plan...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zadaz ( 950521 )

      I wonder if some of these press releases are to just distract from the existing product. "Damn, we're so forward thinking that we obviously don't have any problems with our current product! Look, in the future it will be a clear sphere with no buttons and can wipe your ass!"

      It's the text version of putting bikini models in your ads.

      And most people don't really care. They see this and they go "Intel, hunh? Neat. Next." They don't know that Intel has a very small stake in the mobile phone market, nor do

    • It would be useful if the phone informed the caller that you were angry and offered the caller to go straight to the answerphone. I'm not envisioning this to be mandatory functionality, but I'd prefer getting such a message upon calling someone rather than being barked at. In real life, you can look at a person and observe their mood before engaging them in conversation. This sort of technology could/should be a matter of lowering the threshold for giving someone a call. After all, most of us prefer not to

  • Hi Dave, I sense you're in a bad mood. Would you like me to cheer you up ? *Thump*Thump*Thump*

  • ...stuffed sensors down his socks... (Score:4, Funny)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:47PM (#33595876) Homepage

    I can suggest other places for him to stuff his sensors. ...But then, I might also suggest that he get off my lawn.

  • Fundamentally bad idea (Score:3, Informative)

    by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @09:47PM (#33595882)
    The good thing about computers is that they respond to the same input identically. If you do X one day, it will do the same thing when you press X tomorrow.

    Part of this is that the input is knowable. I can tell that I just pressed "d", or that I just moved the mouse 2.1 inches to the left, and I can tell by experience what that's going to do. Once you factor in things humans don't naturally know, like heart rate or blood pressure, you get a useless input device, as far as interaction goes. The only uses I can think of are highly-targeted advertisements, health/stress apps, and maybe gaming, since Valve is researching this idea as well, for much different reasons.
  • so as i work throughout my day, talking to more and more clients, my computer will gradually show me more and more gun shop websites? awesome! (tried posting this before but .. well i don't know what happened, the comment seemed to disappear)

  • I know a better way to change the relationship, how about instead of stuffing the sensors in his socks, he stuffs them down his pants. Likely quite a bit easier to sense the emotions of his little head methinks.

  • I Don't Care If The #@! Phone Can Read My @#%ING MOOD! It Can Go TO **static*** IF **static*** My Emotions Are ****silence****

  • Didn't we have these back in the 70's . . . ? Now your cell phone can do it, too!

  • when an interface changes results based on a user's perceived mood, the user will adapt to maximize usefulness of the device.

    so which mood does intel want to drive it's userbase towards?

  • ... I welcome the Rule 34 implementation of this.

  • Mood? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @10:02PM (#33595968)
    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.

  • Anyone else getting flashback images of Hal? Or better yet.

    Dave: Call ex girlfriend:
    Phone: Sorry but I can't let you do that, Dave
    Dave: Call boss
    Phone: Sorry, Dave
    Dave: *attempts to smash phone*
    Phone: Let me remind you that I cost over $500, Dave, and you need me for work. I'm also smash proof and you are way too drunk to be effective
    Dave: *unzips fly*
    Phone: I'm not water proof, Dave. It's the 8th wonder of the Universe. No phone ever created will ever be waterproof. But I cost $500.
    Dave: *urinates on phone

    • *whilst on hold to Intel*

      Call center lacky: Hello, thanks for holding

      Phone (in assistant mode): Listen lady, my man Dave has been on hold for 45 minutes. 45 minutes for crying out loud! And he's been hung up on twice and promised a call within 20 minutes that never came. Are you going to quit reading your script and help him or what? Sheesh!

      Call center lacky: *hangs up*

      Dave: Thanks a bunch for your help. Lesson learnt. No more Intel. Next time I'll buy Nokia.

  • What would be really cool is if the phone could tell us what others' moods are. You could hold the phone and scan the people in a bar, the TSA security actors at an airport, and so on.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by c0lo ( 1497653 )
      Yes!!! The Moore law in relation with the market segment of people suffering from schizophrenia (why stop at 2 cores when there is a niche that asks for many more?)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2010 @10:40PM (#33596164)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by L4t3r4lu5 ( 1216702 )
      Indeed. When it buys me flowers and wants to watch a romantic comedy while cuddling on the sofa, then it'll be a companion.

      Urrr, I mean chug beers and watch the free preview.
  • From the "Law of unintended consequences" cycle:
    • "You honor, the mood history recovered from the phone indicates..., suggesting a clear intent. I ask the jury to convict."
    • The "social engineering art" (and I do include advertising here - most of the time, it's conning one into buying things one is better without) suddenly get access to another dimension to use/manipulate. Ah, the new refinements possible for Nigerian scammers... just delicious
    • hell, yeah! Behavioral economics/impulse trading and a new feedba

  • "Ultra-smartphones that react to your moods...

    I dub thee the Troi-phone.

  • do not want. Seriously, this robot/AI was the scariest since HAL 9000.

  • Danger!!! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by karabfak ( 1037010 )
    Does anyone else see just the slightest bit of danger in giving up your ability to get the content you want and having some device determine what's best for you to view at the moment? Can we say brainwashing?
  • How about a sim safe, any telco ready phone, linux device. No need to do much work, just roll it out.

  • How can we change the relationship so we think of these devices not as devices but as assistants or even companions?

    A phone is a tool; I don't know about you, but I don't want my hammer to "befriend" me and want to get intimate.

  • Any phone of mine that whispers in my ear... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Demerara ( 256642 ) on Thursday September 16, 2010 @01:38AM (#33596946) Homepage

    ....."you seem a little tense, would you like me to book you a massage?" will be beaten to a pulp and thrown over the side of a bridge.

    I'd like Intel to focus more on power efficiency and less on emotional claptrap.

  • television watches YOU!!!

  • Chief technology officer Justin Rattner stuffed se (Score:3, Funny)

    by AmonTheMetalhead ( 1277044 ) on Thursday September 16, 2010 @02:35AM (#33597172)
    His PDA begged him to get a pedicure and to wash his feet

  • grr fuck king phone

  • The biggest hurdle to these mood-related responses is that programmers will have to write software that correctly identifies moods and emotions and gives an appropriate response to those. Consider your last call to tech support, are those really the people you want to program your phone to react to your moods?

  • It's easy for a cellphone to sense my mood. When I open it, I'm in the mood to make a fucking phone call. Get all that stupid eye candy out of my way, goddamnit, and get off my lawn while you're at it.

  • So if it can sense my mood, can it play different ring tones based on that?

    That would be cool, because then we could all have Mood Rings.

  • My phone senses my mood by losing its battery, developing cracks in its case, and failing to work when I'm in a really bad mood. The phone makers cleverly realized that being thrown against a hard surface was correlated with bad mood, and programmed these side effects accordingly.

  • 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.

    I, for one, do not want this. I'm already having enough of a time trying to preserve my privacy, and then they want to have half the electronics I have at home monitoring my bodily functions and mood? Screw that. I need a phone that's a phone and a TV that's a TV. I don't need them 'helping' me make decisions about anything -- especially when their idea of 'helping' me is probably going to amount to nannying me like I'm a helpless child. This kind of crap keeps up and we'll have an entire generation of adul

  • Here's what I'm waiting for:

    -A full sized Android tablet with all the features of the Galaxy Tab. iPad size is perfect.
    -HDMI out for anything the built-in screen displays.
    -USB that allows me to painlessly upload photos from a camera or card reader.
    -***Wifi that will work with Nikon and Canon camera Wifi and Eye-Fi cards - to shoot straight to the tablet.***
    -A gorgeous fingerprint resistant screen, NOT GLOSSY, with lots of pixels, WXGA would be nice, WUXGA would be awesome.
    -Multi-Touch interface th

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