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'Auto Smiley' Inserts Emoticons When You're Actually Smiling

by Amar Toor on March 25, 2010 at 10:15 AM

The smiley emoticon, as we've already made clear, is perhaps the most annoyingly ambiguous glyph in our entire digital lexicon. Whether it pops up in texts, e-mails, or IMs, the smiley forces us to go digging for contextual clues that might tell us whether or not the person on the other side was really smiling, or if there was some ulterior, passive aggressive subtext at work. Well, now all that tireless guesswork may soon become easier, thanks to a new application that purports to hold compulsive emoticon-artists accountable for their actual emotions.

Auto Smiley uses a computer webcam and openFrameworks software to analyze a user's face to determine whether or not he or she actually smiles. Upon detecting a grin, the app will automatically insert a generic ':)' into the text of the program in use. As you can see in the demo video after the jump, the app seems to be pretty accurate, and, according to creator Theo Watson, engenders substantially more honesty into everyday online conversation.

Although the Auto Smiley introduces a certain level of transparency to the otherwise opaque smiley, the app has a long way to go before genuinely conveying emotion. It may be impossible to implement, but the it obviously needs some sort of safeguard against elastically fake smiles, which remain a major pitfall. And given the rich biodiversity of the emoticon phylum, creating an app that automatically detects a standard ':)' smiley is just the tip of the iceberg. What about an Auto Frown? An Auto Tear? An Auto whatever the hell 'X-(' is?

In fact, the real benefit of the Auto Smiley is to the sender, and not the receiver of the smiley. By gently reminding (congratulating?) us whenever we smile, the app could serve as a weird mirror of our own mood -- a two-dimensional mood ring, if you will. The Auto Smiley may not be able to solve the riddle of the smiley sphinx, but it's definitely stumbled upon thought-provoking gold. [From: Make; via: Neatorama]


Tags: accountability, app, application, emoticon, emoticons, fun, smileys, theo watson, TheoWatson, top, web, webcam

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