Body Tracking Allows Cell Phones to Mimic Human Interaction
A walking, talking cellphone. How many people can say they’ve seen one of those? Well, two scientists in Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) have built not one, but two. Their first robotic cell phones, Cally and her younger brother Callo, can walk, dance and, using human tracking algorithms, mimic human gestures. Callo can even pass along text messaging emoticons as facial expressions.
The two SIAT scientists recently demonstrated their robot’s ability to mimic human gestures via the video camera that was on the cell phone. One video shows one of the scientists standing in front of a cell phone that is attached to a mechanized suit with arms and legs, attached via cable to a computer. On the computer, you can see the video image displayed from the cell phone, and a number of labels tracking the scientist. There was a label for each hand, and one for his head. As the scientist raised and lowered his hands, the robot’s arms mimicked him.
Another video shows the display on the cell phone acting as a face for the miniature robot. As the text messages were being sent from the two phones, the receiving robot would display an emoticon to simulate a human expression. At one point, the sender of one message says that the two operators had broken up, and Callo’s screen displayed X( as if grimacing from the news, while simultaneously crouching down and moving its arms.
They are currently working on expanding their human tracking system to track facial expressions as well as body movements. They hope to one day increase robotic social interactions with their human operators. Text messaging your friends could become much more interactive as well, perhaps decreasing miscommunication by providing facial expressions as a means to provide insight into the sender’s intent or attitude. Often a problem with written words is the lack of social queues to inform the recipient that the sender was being either sarcastic or sincere.
If your cell phone could determine your mood when texting, simply by tracking your facial expressions, miscommunication could possibly become less likely when communicating via text message. If a cell phone could do it, then a computer would also be able to run the facial tracking and facial recognition software that would allow written communication to incorporate social queues. This of course has its draw backs. If your computer or cell phone can read your emotions via facial recognition, then you might as well consider calling people when you are trying to hide your emotions behind written word. This technology could work to bridge the gap that younger generations have between a full range emotions when communicating and the emotionless interaction that seems so common nowadays.
Robotic cell phones express emotions (w/ Video)
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