UK Edition
Amazon creates voice-activated device that recognises human emotions
Amazon is developing a voice-activated wearable device that can read human emotions and tell whether people are angry or sad based just on their tone of voice.
The wrist-worn gadget, code-named “Dylan”, will feature microphones paired with software that can detect a person's mental state based on their voice alone. It could even be used to offer counselling to users on how to interact with other people.
The retail giant has been working on the wearable that would pair with a smartphone app and early beta testing has begun.
The device is being billed as a “health and wellness” gadget, according to internal documents seen by Bloomberg. The new technology could be capable of recording emotions such happiness, excitement, fear and disgust.
The device is a collaboration between Lab126, the hardware development group that developed Amazon's phone and the Alexa voice team.
While emotion detection was once considered in the realms of science fiction, robots using computer vision and artificial intelligence are getting increasingly adept at spotting human emotions from their faces.
But voice detection is at the centre of Amazon's ambitions. Its Echo smart speakers have proved popular and the company has said it wants to create more lifelike virtual assistants.
The company's chief executive, Jeff Bezos, only this year revealed that more than a 100 million Alexa devices were sold since the Echo launched in 2014, despite there being no visible demand for the device.
Last year, the Telegraph revealed Amazon patented a new version of Alexa that could automatically detect when a person is ill and offer to sell them medicine from their voice alone.
At the time, the proposed patent suggested that Alexa could register a range of emotions by analysing their speech as part of an in-built service.
This futuristic version of Alexa would listen out for if users are crying and then class them as experiencing an “emotional abnormality.”
Healthcare has been a focus for Amazon for some time. Last year, the company bought Pillpack, a US start-up that sends pills in the post, and earlier this year it announced a deal to use its artificial intelligence technology to cut administrative costs in US hospitals.
The company has not confirmed whether it plans to commercialise this device. An Amazon spokesperson said the company “does not comment on rumours and speculation”.