Or the Emotion Mirroring System for Online Traders.
This stylish bracelet and bowl are the fruits of a joint venture between Dutch electronics group Philips and ABN Amro, and were designed to help online traders make better decisions.Here’s how the system works: The Emobowl ™ acts as an emotion mirror, in which the intensity of the user’s feelings is reflected.
If you are stressed or over-excited about a certain stock – Gulf Keystone for example - the Emobracelet ™ sends a message to the bowl which starts glowing. You then know it is time to take a break and ask yourself if Gulf Keystone is really headed to 200p.
Anyway, here’s the technology behind what Philips has dubbed the Rationalizer concept:
The bracelet measures the arousal component of the user’s emotion through a galvanic skin response sensor. This arousal level is rendered as a dynamic light pattern on either the EmoBracelet itself or on the EmoBowl. The higher the arousal level, the more intense the dynamic light pattern becomes: the number of elements increases, the speed increases and the color shifts from a soft yellow, via orange, to a deep red. The concept is based on easy to experience advanced sensing and signal processing technology from Philips: it does not require a complicated setup or complex user interface So, basically it measures sweat.
Now, if there are any FT Alphaville readers out there who would like to test an Emobracelet and bowl we are more than happy to get in touch with Philips to see if something can be arranged.
However, female readers need not apply. Apparently women, aside from being less sweaty, are less emotional investors than men; they don’t get attached to stocks and don’t need a glowing bowl to tell them when they are acting irrationally.
Related links:
The ultimate credit crunch gadget for anxious traders – a bracelet which tells when you are too stressed – Daily Mail
Philips’ crazy Rationalizer bracelet (video) – Engadget