Disney Patents Mood Sensing Media Player

[Audioholics]

Potentially one of the creepiest new media technologies to come along in awhile, Jan 4th Disney entered a patent for a mood sensing media player. Once the device has been given a chance to build a profile on you it’s supposed to predict your mood and what kind of music you want to hear and then play it back. Using a wrist strap like the kind used with a lie detector it reads your pulse, temperature and perspiration. The player will make a selection for you that you can choose to hear or reject, forcing its algorithm to make another selection. The mood sensing media player will learn your taste in music based on your vital signs.

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[Rip Van Woofer]

I might as well be the first to ask: Does it come with a Mickey Mouse mood ring?

If it thinks I'm in a bad mood will it play "Zipitty Doo Dah" and "It's A Small World" until I scream?

 

[j_garcia]

So if it detects a state of irritation, will it play something heavy because that's the mood I'm in, or will it play something mellow to calm me down?

 

[BMXTRIX]

The follow up to this is that they have now licensed the technology to Bose who insists that this is the next generation of 'better sound through research'.

Heck, if they can't actually make it sound good, maybe a little voodoo and bio signs can help them at least pick music that won't irk you.

 

[rsachs]

Don't worry about this so-called invention

First, this is not an issued patent. It is a patent application that Disney filed, and that has been published. It does not mean that Disney will get a patent issued on this alleged invention.

Second, there is a lot of prior research ("prior art") in this field, indeed on this very concept of sensing a user's mood via sensors on the body, and then selecting music accordingly. See, http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~am1/C&F3abs.PDF (1997) which describes Renn Scott's "Automated Emotional DJ".

Assuming that the patent examiner can find prior art like this (it only took me 2 searches in Google to find), then Disney shouldn't get a patent.

And if they do, so what? This is a silly concept without any real value--or more to the point, it does not work in any really useful way. There is no real relationship between termperature, pulse, etc. on what kind of music I want to listen to. There is no relationship between these factors and whether I want to listen to hard bebop vs. Bach fugues. So let Disney have it.

FWIW, I'm a software patent attorney (14 years) and I've seen plenty of goofy (!) ideas like this. Sound and fury signifying nothing.