A San Diego startup is working to launch technology for Google Glass that can read people's facial expressions and determine their emotional state.
Emotient, which is currently in a $6 million round of funding, eventually wants to become the top tech offering for "sentiment analysis," TechCrunch reported.
Since it was founded in 2012, Emotient has fundraised $8 million toward implementing its technology into the world of wearables. The startup's technology works by tracking 19 distinct muscle movements to figure out "advanced emotions" while also detecting the person's general feeling.
"Emotient's technology is based around detecting and tracking the seven expressions of primary emotion--joy, surprise, sadness, anger, fear, disgust and contempt--as well as overall sentiments like positive, negative, and neutral," TechCrunch reported.
One of the company's first applications is designed to work with Google Glass; the app will initially be intended for people working in marketing so they can gauge customer responses during interactions.
"We believe our technology is differentiated in its ability to deliver sentiment and emotional insights in real-time and in its accuracy in uncontrolled environments, such as a crowded store," spokeswoman Vikki Herrera told TechCrunch.
According to Engadget, Emotient is testing the Google Glass app through "a handful of companies" with a private beta program. If the app is successful with upping store sales, it could move on to any number of locations.
"All good business leaders know 'you get what you measure' and being able to objectively and accurately monitor customer sentiment allows retail teams to build plans and tactics to win," said Ken Denman, Emotient CEO, said in a statement, as reported by TechCrunch.
"The ability to measure real-time customer sentiment, as it relates to customer service, products and merchandising is a huge opportunity for businesses to drive focus and therefore sales."
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