Technology firm Apple has just made an interesting purchase with technology company Emotient. An intriguing startup company, Emotient is known for creating technology that is able to analyze the facial expressions of people in order to gauge their reactions to an event or situation. The technology from Emotient is able to be applied to both single individuals and large groups of people.
At the present time, Apple has not stated their reasoning behind acquiring Emotient. That being said, Emotient maintains a diverse patent portfolio that allows its unique technology to mine several various media situations and content relating to human emotions. Needless to say, Apple could very well use the technology of Emotient to have its products better correspond to the current emotions of its users.
For instance, there are obvious applications in commercial situations that are particularly dependent on human reactions, such as Hollywood test screenings. Furthermore, the technology could easily be used in medical applications, in which expressions can determine a person’s response to any given diagnosis or treatment.
The motto of Emotient is in line with this vision, reading, “Attention, engagement, emotion. This is the currency of revenue growth and customer satisfaction, because emotions drive spending. These quantities have been measured only as guesses and indirect inferences. Until now.”
Emotient offers the promise that it can use direct emotional responses in order to provide customer insights. This is the primary selling-point of Emotient.
Recently, Apple has also made two other artificial intelligence acquisitions. These include Perceptio, which Apple will use to increase its search for talented hires and VocallQ, which will be used to improve the function of Apple’s interactive personal assistant tool Siri.
Apple is well-known for purchasing smaller technology companies and then incorporating their technologies into their own. Apple generally refrains from initially revealing their purposes or plans for such acquisitions. However, Apple’s purchase of Emotient should become more clear over time.
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