Positive Technology Journal

Via Leeander

The “Rationalizer”, is a new concept device by Philips that is designed for “mirroring" your emotions.

The user wears an Emobracelet on his/her wrist which measures the arousal component of the user’s emotion through a galvanic skin response sensor. The EmoBracelet is wirelessly connected with the EmoBowl, a bowl with lighted patterns that displays user’s emotional status.

The range is a soft yellow, orange, or deep red.

When the user sees that the bowl is flashing red, it means that it might be good to take a breather and calm down before making any irrational decisions (i.e. risky investments).

See how the Razionalizer works in this concept video:

Via Info Aesthetic

The free-downloadable book Emotional Cartography - Technologies of the Self is a collection of essays that explores the political, social and cultural implications of visualizing intimate biometric data and emotional experiences using technology. The theme of this collection of essays is to investigate the apparent desire for technologies to map emotion, using a variety of different approaches.

From InfoAesthetics

a textual emotion recognition & visualization engine based on the concept of synesthesia , or in other words: "code that feels the words visually". the synesketch application is able to dynamically transfer the text into animated visual patterns.

the emotional parameters are based on a WordNet-based lexicon of words with their general & specific emotional weights, for the emotion types happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise. the visualization is based on a generative painting system of imaginary colliding particles. colors & shapes of these patterns depend on the type and intensity of interpreted textual emotions.

Via Medgadget 

Frost & Sullivan has awarded Exmocare, Inc. with 2008 North American Emotion Monitoring Technology Innovation of the Year Award for "developing the ExmoCare physiology and emotion monitoring platform that aids in understanding the physiological state of a person through monitoring the expression of emotion patterns. The platforms developed by the company Exmocare, Inc. are unique in that they are the first of their kind to become a first-stop solution for vital sign monitoring , emotional monitoring, and online reporting."

Press release: Exmocare Taps into $200 Billion Industry - Maker of Award-winning 24/7 Bluetooth Vital Signs Wristwatch

Product page: The Exmocare BT2...

 


(Massey University)

Video

Via Pasta & Vinegar

Designer Dominic Muren has created a device that allows a civilian to feel the heartbeat of a soldier:

I think we can all agree that war has become too impersonal. Media coverage emphasizes our distance, and most decision makers in congress don't have children who fight. Beat connects you very directly to a single soldier by thumping their recorded heartbeat against your chest. If they are calm, or worried, or under stress, you feel it. If they die, the heartbeat you feel dies too. If we are going to continue to fight wars, we need better methods of feedback like this one so the costs are more visceral and real for us. Imagine if all politicians were required to wear one of these!!

Via Science Daily

Researchers at Tufts University are developing a system that allows to monitor user experiences while working. The system is based on functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) technology that uses light to monitor brain blood flow as a proxy for workload stress a user may experience when performing an increasingly difficult task to respond to users' thoughts of frustration or boredom.

Via InfoAesthetics

from the project website:

The affective diary assembles sensor data, captured from the user and uploaded via their mobile phone, to form an ambiguous, abstract colourful body shape. With a range of other materials from the mobile phone, such as text and MMS messages, photographs, etc., these shapes are made available to the user. Combining these materials, the diary is designed to invite reflection and to allow the user to piece together their own stories.

Via Information Aesthetics

This website shows beatiful animated landscape loops designed for visual relaxation (Flash plugin required)

Technology does not naturally sense nonverbal cues such as facial expressions and tone of voice, and does not easily acquire common sense knowledge about people. These "mindreading" functions also do not come naturally for some people, such as those diagnosed with autism. ESP is an affective wearable system that explores ways to augment and enhance the wearer's emotional-social intelligence. ESP's computational model of mind-reading infers in real time affective-cognitive mental states from nonverbal cues such as head and facial displays of people, and communicates these inferences to the wearer via visual, sound, and tactile feedback.

Our work leverages the advances in affect sensing and perception to (1) develop technologies that are sensitive to people's affective-cognitive states; (2) advance autism research and (3) create new technologies that enhance the social-emotional intelligence of people diagnosed with autism, as well as those who are not.

The project addresses open research challenges pertaining to whether machines can augment social interactions in a way that improves human to human communication. A longer term aim is to use the prosthesis as an assistive and therapeutic device for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder.