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Alternate technology that could take games to the next level

Aug 16, 2007

We've taken a peek at the outsiders of Windows technology, things being made not in the forges of Valve or nVidia, but in research labs. Some are so new they still have an umbilical cord attached; others are old, but overlooked. All present exciting possibilities. Behold what could be the future of games.

What is it?
Ted Selker and Jon Wetzel of MIT propose a way of using facial expressions to interact with computers. Their technology can recognize emotes such as head shaking and mouth positions and assign controls to them.

Gaming potential
How many times in RPGs are we going to be asked to select an emotional response from a menu? Imagine smiling as your answer, or looking stern to get across an emotion, and how that could change the way you interact with the NPC. You could even mirror or counterpoint an NPC's expression, in order to create empathy with that character.