Every year there is a competition where high school students can enter innovations that they have created for a chance to win $100,000. This is a competition where great minds come together. This year, the winners were two junior boys who worked together to create a voice-recognition algorithm. This algorithm allows computers to "hear" the voice of a speaker and interpret the emotion being portrayed. It utilizes frequencies and previously defined voice clips in order to determine what emotion the speaker is feeling. It is currently very accurate in deciphering happy and sad, but still struggles when emotions like fear and anger are added into the mix. The pair has big plans for this new technology. One use they have in mind is at call centers, where extremely upset customers can be identified and sent to a real person more efficiently. Additionally, they have plans to make a watch for autistic children. In their minds, these watches will read what the speaker is portraying and display a face on the screen that will match the emotion. The inspiration from the two boys came from the movie iRobot, where a robot identifies fear in its user and acts to protect the person. The two students that can be credited with this amazing innovation are Matthew Fernandez and Akash Krishnan.
Information from: http://www.npr.org/2010/12/08/131913220/Team-Wins-Siemens-Prize-For-Speech-Analyzer
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