EmotionML

For all those who believe the computing industry is populated by people who are out of touch with the world of emotion, it's time to think again. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which standardizes many Web technologies, is working on formalizing emotional states in a way that computers can handle. The name of the specification, which in July reached second-draft status, is Emotion Markup Language. EmotionML combines the rigor of computer programming with the squishiness of human emotion. But the Multimodal Interaction Working Group that's overseeing creation of the technology really does want to marry the two worlds. Some of the work is designed to provide a more sophisticated alternative to smiley faces and other emoticons for people communicating with other people.

It's also geared to improve communications between people and computers. The idea is called affective computing in academic circles, and if it catches on, computer interactions could be very different. Avatar faces could show their human master's expression during computer chats. Games could adjust play intensity according to the player's reactions. Customer service representatives could be alerted when customers are really angry. Computers could respond to your expressions as people do. Computer help technology like Microsoft's Clippy or a robot waiter could discern when to make themselves scarce. EmotionML embodies two very different forms of expression--the squishy nature of emotion and the rigorously precise language of a standard.

More information:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20014967-264.html