Emotion Audio-Prosthesis from Panasonic

Don’t worry, I don’t fully get it yet either.  Essentially, the commercial goal of the product is to provide a device that would help us to ‘grasp the issue of the emotional deficits in society’.  Then, instead of reacting the way we insinctively would, Panasonic could provide us with a set of alternate or recommended emotions… Hmmm.  Read more.  This is wack.

From the Panasonic Site:
• The means that allow for the expression of these emotions is an interactive SD audio-prosthesis. This is a substitute, personal container for the emotions of users who are not able, or do not want, to experience life through their own emotional perceptions. This new device resembles a Walkman-type device with headphones that does not play music inside, but rather outside, of the head. The device facilitates the user’s emotional communication with the world around him. It is not designed for his/her personal use only; on the contrary, it is equipped with a tiny amplifier.
• The memory of the SD Audio Player chip card contains a great amount of data containing recordings of authentic human emotions. For instance, if the user finds himself in a situation where he has to argue with someone, yet he does not want to get into confrontation and to waste his own emotions, he locates a password on his SD Audio Player representing an appropriate emotional response, which he then applies accordingly.
• The SD Audio Player is a highly interactive device that can also record and thus appropriate the emotions of other people. Such recordings, including those from movies, can be further edited and modified on a computer. In this way, the user can appropriate the emotions that are conveyed by celebrities and other prominent individuals. Therefore, the range of recordings can vary substantially.

Let’s mention at least some of these emotions: “sniveling, peevishness, sobbing, moaning, crying, gradual emotional collapse, breakdown, yelling by a beaten person, the state of mind between laughter and crying, the hysterical family argument from Fellini’s film Amarcord, pubescent giggling, comforting and fondling of a baby, a feeling of well-being, enthusiastic effusions, wearing somebody out, cuddling, soothing, etc.”