Sunday, October 7, 2007

Quantifiably Laughing

Technology is the Cutting Edge. There is no doubt about it, we are in the midst of a revolution, as this item taken from the September 7th , 2007 edition ofthe Chicago Shimpo, the city's Japanese community paper reported on.

Apparently this company has perfected -to percentile accuracy- the degree of your smile, as the screen shot below shows (that lady has a "100%" smile! On the other hand the fellow is only clocking in at a 32% smile - hmm, perhaps he woke up on the wrong side of bed?

Omron says that this device can "help take a picture of your best smile, and can also check your smile if you work in the service industry." No sense leaving something this importance to your intuition nor experience folks, not when science has the numbers to back it all up!

One thing that strikes me as odd is that "laughing" and smiling" seem to be used synonymously here - but really is anything as benign as a smile behind every laugh, or vice versa? Laughing at your clients might not got you the commission nor the date you were hoping for...

1 comment:

selena said...

parenthetically, omron makes really good pedometers - probably the best. i wear one, as do my sister and mom. judging from the exactitude with which the step-trackers work, i'd bet that this new gizmo is pretty accurate.

i could totally see mcdonald's or grocery stores in japan using this to keep tabs on their employees. my sis worked at a supermarket, and the management was fanatical about the precision of greeting the customers.