The EmoSpark is an attempt to make artificial intelligencemore friendly by packing the AI into a small cube that can recognize and react to your emotional state.

The EmoSpark console is only 3.5-inches on a side and fits in the palm of your hand. It is being designed by inventor Patrick Rosenthal who wants to use the EmoSpark to recognize not only people, but their emotions in real time. The cube does this with traditional face-tracking technology and a content analysis engine developed by Rosenthal. Theoretically, by glancing at you, the EmoSpark will be capable of differentiating between basic human emotions.
Assuming the EmoSpark is able to figure out your mood, what can it do with that information? At first, not very much. As it is starting to get to know a person, the AI is able to recommend various songs, videos, and other content on sites like YouTube and Facebook. As the cube’s EPG gets more advanced, it will be better able to respond verbally to people it recognizes. This is essentially a machine that learns empathy. The EmoSpark will have an API that allows app developers to plug into the EPG. This will graft new abilities onto the EmoSpark, giving it new ways to interact with its human friends.


 The EPU that powers the facial tracking and empathy business is a custom-built 20MHz chip, but that’s not the only hardware at work. The EmoSpark also contains a 1.8GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, and an internal WiFi antenna. The interface shown on your screen while the cube is learning about you is running on top of Android, which should make integrating EmoSpark easier for developers.