MIT’s Social Intelligence Saturday, February 4, 2006
Posted by Roland in Technology.trackback
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. Everybody on the outside thinks of MIT like the Geek Misfits in the (so-called) “reality” show Beauty and the Geek.
However, I consider the five years I spent at MIT among the most enjoyable in my life. And, my MIT friends continue to make up the closest I’ve made.
You gotta love the creatively innovative science that goes on at the Institute. Especially at the Media Lab.
Here’s an example: The Socially-Intelligent Wearables can help one’s dating life in measuring human interest in a telephone conversation, or the Jerk-O-Meter could tell you if you’re being a jerk on the telephone.
Have you ever had the experience where you call someone up and he or she doesn’t seem to be paying attention to you?The Jerk-O-Meter (or JerkoMeter) is a real-time speech feature analysis application that runs on your VOIP phone or cell phone that remedies precisely that experience. It uses speech features that measure activity and stress (and soon empathy) from your tone of voice and speaking style, to predict if you are ‘being a jerk’ on the phone. The phone displays appropriate messages, and can also be set up to inform the person on the other end of the line that you’re extremely busy. The messages range from “Stop being a jerk!” to “Wow, you’re a smooth talker,” based on your performance. The application is currently designed to analyze only the user’s conversation, and not the person at the other end of the line. The Jerk-O-Meter is the work of Anmol Madan, a PhD candidate at the MIT Media Laboratory, and Dr. Alex (Sandy) Pentland, a pioneer in wearable and socially aware computing.
(Note: This was also posted on my “nerd-blog”: Roland.Net.)
Comments»
No comments yet — be the first.