Last week, I came up with a quick hack, explained quite neatly by @crouchingbadger:
Dale Lane’s TV watches him. It knows if he’s happy or surprised or sad. This is amazing. dalelane.co.uk/blog/?p=2092 (via @libbymiller)
— Ben Ward (@crouchingbadger) April 13, 2012
It was a bit of fun, even if it did seem to convince a group of commenters on engadget that I was a rage-fuelled XBox gamer. 🙂
There’s one big limitation with the hack, though: I don’t spend that much of my day in front of the TV.
It’s interesting to use it to measure my reactions to specific TV programmes or games. But thinking bigger, it’d be cool to try a hack that monitors me throughout the day to measure what kind of day I’m having.
I don’t spend much time in front of the TV, but I do spend a *lot* of time in front of my Macbook. And it has a camera, too!
What if my MacBook could look out for my face, and whenever it can see it, monitor what facial expression I have and whether I’m smiling? And while I’m at it, as I’ve been playing with sentiment analysis recently, add in whether the tweets I post sound positive or neutral.
Add that together, and could I make a reasonable automated estimate as to whether I’m having a good day?