A Keyboard That Can Tell How You Feel

A computer has been able to do a whole lot that a man can do, but feelings and emotions have been out of the realm of machines, so far. Now a new type of keyboard can deduce your emotions based on your typing style. It has been tested to be accurate more than 80% of the time.

Researchers form Islamic University of Technology from Bangladesh have come up with a software that records your keyboard strokes and text to analyze what you were thinking while typing. They asked volunteers to type in certain sample texts and using the technology developed analyzed the keystrokes and characteristics to see if they could identify the emotional state of the typist.

Currently the software is able to distinguish between seven emotional states such as joy, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, shame or guilt. The best part of this science project is that no special keyboard or hardware is required to identify the emotions. The software uses basic Java and C# based modules which can be installed into any computer software. These findings could be significant to the development of emotionally aware computer systems as their approach relies on less expensive, and less intrusive, methods than tools like voice analysis, facial sensors, thermal imaging, and gesture tracking.