Microsoft wants to help you read people’s emotions with HoloLens

While everyone else is focus on virtual reality, Microsoft wants to become a pioneer of augmented reality with its HoloLens headset. One of the ways the company plans on doing this is by enabling you to read people’s emotions, according to a recent patent. Using a number of visual readings, Microsoft believes it can determine a person’s emotions using the camera on HoloLens. 

Detailed within a patent filed by Microsoft, the software company may be developing mood-sensing technology for the HoloLens holographic headset. Specifically, the device could be programmed to interpret a person’s disposition using eye tracking, gesture recognition, audio analysis, posture analysis, expression recognition and biometric analysis. Hypothetically, this would allow the user of the HoloLens to quickly read people that are standing in front of them, basically a cheat sheet for reading emotions. As an example, Microsoft includes an illustration of a someone giving a presentation while using the HoloLens to read people within the audience. The presenter basically directs their attention to anyone that’s identified as being bored. That example could also translate into the school environment easily, basically directing the teacher to engage with children that are becoming distracted or bored in class.