Smile: You're on a candid camera...

I just got so inspired when I found this! It's an application which uses your webcam and runs in the background on your computer. Every time you smile, it writes :) to your front-most application. It's such a cool thing to be able to add that you're happy (well, smiling anyway) to such a simple thing as an IM conversation or an e-mail. The beautiful thing is that it makes you 100% transparent. If you smile while writing or reading, the person at the other end will know. I showed it to a couple of people at the office and at first, everybody goes (facetiously), "Uh, sounds cool" (not very enthusiastic). But after they tried it and saw that it actually works, they couldn't stop smiling at their own "smileys." I think it's so cool that it only does one thing: to check if you're smiling. It could have been so tempting to put in a lot of other functionality. But the most amazing thing is that it was made in less than an hour. The creator behind this is designer and digital artist Theo Watson, who is also known for the Eyewriter and Graffiti Research Lab 's Laser Tag. This piece of work is the perfect example of human-computer interaction. Thanks, Theo! Mathias Appelblad is Executive Creative Director and Director of Innovation at BBDO, New York

Smile: You're on a candid camera...

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