IBM researchers are attempting to warm up human-computer relationships. For example, IBM, International Business Machines, has b

IBM researchers are attempting to warm up human-computer relationships. For example, IBM, International Business Machines, has been working on getting computers to recognize human gestures, such as an arm wave to move a corresponding object on screen. Recently, the company’s researchers have gone a step further by training a computer to recognize human emotions.
    To demonstrate their progress, IBM relied out Pong, a robotic head without body that can react to human facial expressions with a smile or a frown Pong uses a camera to capture your gestures in pain or anger or frowning and uses software to interpret what it sees; But don’t expect your computer to start grinning at you any time soon. It will take years for these experiments to produce anything out of the lab.
    In the meantime, you can get a taste of the future by playing with basic gesture-recognition technology on your own Windows PC. With a USB video camera connected to your PC, Cybernet’s $40 Headhunter software can track and translate head movements into game commands. Lean left, for example, and the onscreen view moves left. Cybernet programmers point out that this is more than fun and games: The software could be used to aid the handicapped.