The mood pen

Remember the mood rings of the ’70s? Now Phillips has come up with the mood pen. Why struggle with finding just the right words to express how you feel when you can use a pen that will sense your mood and express it for you through the thickness of line and colour of ink?

(Phillips) has developed a pen with sensors in its shaft that detect physiological factors, such as heart beat, blood pressure, skin temperature, and finger pressure.

The pen also has a small actuator that can change the properties of the line that the pen traces out by switching inks and modifying the shape of the writing tip. A built-in chip then determines the writer’s emotional state and changes the colour and quality of the trace accordingly.

Phillips suggests that this could indicate, for example, whether a document was signed with enthusiasm or hesitation.

Personally, I’d never use such a thing because, a) I type, and b) I’m a professional writer: half the time my mood when I’m writing is nothing more than dogged determination mixed with a great weariness and a strong desire to simply be done with the darn thing, already! And yet the reader is, one hopes, none the wiser.

I don’t necessarily want you to know what mood I’m in as I write. And probably you don’t want to know, either.

Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2008/01/the-mood-pen/

1 comment

    • Ian H. on January 19, 2008 at 2:54 pm
    • Reply

    You mean you don’t put little smiley faces next to each chapter heading with “present mood” written in? Maybe they’ll come out with a digital version that measures how fast and how hard you hit each key…

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