What does love look like? If you could tell your life’s defining love story and see it materialize right in front of you, how would it twist and wind and bend and flow? Brazilian architect Guto Requena and D3 Studio are turning emotions into physical objects with The Love Project.

Each personalized object is made by mapping the complex emotions of a participant. Sensors are placed on each participant which measure voice, heart rate, and brain activity as the person tells his or her greatest love story.

Through a complex system of digital technology, those measurements are turned into three-dimensional shapes. The data is fed into a graphical algorithm editor where each stream of sensor measurements controls a different aspect of the soon-to-be object’s shape.

The speaker’s voice controls the velocity of the particles and the brain wave measurements control whether the particles attract or repel one another. The speaker’s heart rate determines the thickness of the object.

As the story is told, the object takes shape on a screen in real time. When the speaker is done, a completely unique 3D model has been created from the words and emotions they shared.

Requena didn’t want to simply create abstract forms, however; each Love Project model has a function. The program can produce a fruit bowl, a lamp, or a vase – which one forms is determined by the speaker’s emotions. Once the model has been completed, it can be 3D printed to create an actual, tangible object representing that specific love story.

The team behind the Love Project is working on a mobile phone app that will allow anyone to tell their own love story and see it created on the screen as a 3D model. Users will then have the option to send the model to a 3D printer, creating what will probably be one of the most endearing, personal gifts any person can give to a loved one.

The post Shape of Love: Program Turns Love Stories Into Objects first appeared on Gajitz.

We still don’t have robots that will do our housework or care for our pets (or kids), but Pepper is the first robot designed to live in homes with humans. Created by Aldebaran, Pepper is currently helping customers in SoftBank Mobile phone company stores in Japan. Aldebaran’s ultimate plan for Pepper, however, is to put the robot in every home as an emotion-sensing companion.

The robot stands a stately four feet tall and moves in an almost creepily fluid manner. The humanoid ‘bot has a vaguely Astro Boy-like face and a screen on its chest. Its job as a companion robot is to detect and react to your emotions. It analyzes facial expressions, words, and body language to determine what mood you’re in and, in theory, provide an appropriate reaction to that mood.

If you seem sad, Pepper may play one of your favorite songs to cheer you up. If you’re happy, Pepper would perhaps dance around or play some fun graphics on its screen. These movements and reactions are only ideas at the moment, however, because Pepper still has a long way to go before it is fully developed and ready to share our homes.

In an increasingly lonely and isolated world where we can do just about everything from home, robots like Pepper might become a necessity for humans’ mental health in the future. It is meant to be a companion, reacting to our emotions and learning from us. Much like a human friend or a spouse, Pepper will learn your moods and evolve to increase your well-being.

Aldebaran has started Pepper’s life as a helper in mobile phone stores, but with the cooperation of developers the robot will gain thousands of apps that will help it benefit humans’ lives. Although it may seem sad for a human to rely on a robot as a companion, robots like Pepper could one day help elderly and disabled people live on their own – not by doing the laundry for them, but by reminding them of what needs to be done and how, and alerting the proper people if trouble should arise.

The post Robot Love: Emotional Robot Designed to Keep You Happy first appeared on Gajitz.

That vaguely attractive androgynous face up there belongs to Socibot, a super-creepy robot that can wear any face at all – even your own. Meant to act as a humanoid interface at trade shows, airports, shopping centers, and other public settings, the Socibot takes over some of the tedious human interaction chores. It can even act as a physical stand-in during teleconferences.

The robot – Socibot  is the larger floor model and Socibot-Mini is the tabletop version – has a fully articulated neck. The robot can read the emotions of the humans around it and respond appropriately, both with facial expressions and with body (or head, anyway) language. The ‘bot can even keep track of up to 12 people in a room at a time, even in a large crowd. We aren’t sure what practical purpose this would serve, but there has to be one, right? It can’t be just about the creepiness factor.

The oddest thing about the Socibot, by far, is its ability to put on any face you wish. It can look like you, your friends, celebrities, or a generic computer-generated human face. An internal projector is used to change the robot’s visage as wanted. Some are pre-set and others can be programmed. When the ‘bot talks,its lips move in perfect synchronization with its virtual words, increasing the level of uncanny valley-type creepiness. The Socibot can scan a human’s face to determine his or her age based on facial lines. And if you have to get up and walk around for a bit, the Socibot’s eyes will follow you around.

Socibot is designed to be as user-friendly as possible, requiring little to no instruction for the general public who would be using the bot for information in a public place. It can understand simple gestures like waves and postures. Owners can program Socibot’s behaviors to determine how it interacts with crowds. The combination of changeable face and programmable behaviors make Socibot one of the most fascinating – yet still (not to beat a dead horse) super-creepy – modern robots.

The post Friendly Interactive Robot Just Wants to Steal Your Face first appeared on Gajitz.

Interaction between humans and their machines is understandably cold and one-sided – but what if your gadgets knew how you were feeling and responded appropriately? A music player designed by Joe Smith, Yeawon Choi, Yifei Chai, and Yuchang Chow called Rapport seeks to establish a more emotional connection between humans and machines.

Rapport is a music player with the ability to read your emotions and play music based on how you feel and react. It begins when you make “eye” contact with the player, which looks like a periscope with its bottom stuck in a wood block. The Rapport leans forward to analyze your facial expression, then chooses a song that it deems appropriate for your mood and the time of day.

The song begins to play at a low volume. If you display a positive reaction, such as a smile, the Rapport player increases the volume. If you express a negative reaction, the player switches to another song. And if you express surprise, the player recoils and returns to the setting it was on before it detected surprise.

The project is an attempt to personalize our technology, to give us a deeper connection with the items we use every day. Although the exterior design is simple, the inner workings are complex. The Rapport includes a webcam, a computer, motors and cables. The device uses complex software to recognize and respond to facial expressions. The team behind the intriguing project say the technology could be used in an educational setting to recognize anxiety and help deliver encouragement to students.

The post Feeling the Music: Gadget Reads Emotions to Choose Songs first appeared on Gajitz.

We remember when bras did what they were supposed to and very little else. Apparently the technology age has changed that and now even our lingerie is wired, for better or worse. These two conceptual brassieres use technology to perform some high-tech (and very sexist) deeds.

The True Love Tester bra from Japanese lingerie company Ravijour is supposed to be “a revolutionary bra that knows how women truly feel.” The bra is equipped with sensors that are supposed to recognize the wearer’s differing heart rates during a variety of activities. The front clasp only opens when the wearer experiences “true love” as determined by an associated smartphone app.

The apparent purpose of the Love Tester Bra is to keep vulnerable women from having casual flings, ignoring the fact that women are smart enough to make their own decisions. The ridiculous concept doesn’t explain what happens when a wearer runs into her true love on the street and her bra flies open – we aren’t even sure how you might get into and out of the bra every day.

Perhaps more useful and associated with a more reputable company, this bra is meant to stop women from indulging in emotional eating. Researchers from Microsoft, the University of Southampton (UK), and the University of Rochester (NY) came together to develop a tool that would recognize and help prevent emotional eating. The bra is full of sensors that measure the wearer’s vital signs, which are then sent through an app that is supposed to determine the wearer’s emotional state.

Along with the bra’s sensors, users can rely on the smartphone app to help them stop emotional eating. The app would allow users to log their food intake and emotional states day by day, making a connection between emotions and eating. It may seem as sexist as the Love Tester Bra, but the researchers say that they chose a bra only because it rests close to the heart all day, and men don’t typically wear a similar garment. The bra and app were found to be 75 percent accurate in determining the wearer’s emotional state, but it probably won’t be put into production anytime soon.

The post Fancy Foundations: 2 Highly Insane High-Tech Bra Concepts first appeared on Gajitz.