Digital Talking Head Named Zoe Can Express Human Emotions on Demand

Posted on March 19, 2013

Cambridge University researchers have unveiled Zoe, a digital talking head that can express human emotions on demand. In the video provided Zoe rapidly changes emotions. Some of the emotions displayed include happy, sad, angry and afraid. The digital face was modeled on the face of British actress Zoe Lister. Take a look:

The researchers say the framework behind Zoe would enable people to upload their own voices and then customize and personalize them. You could potentially have a digital avatar of yourself that could speak in your own voice and express emotions.

The researchers said in a statement, "If this can be developed, then a user could, for example, text the message 'I'm going to be late' and ask it to set the emotion to 'frustrated.' Their friend would then receive a 'face message' that looked like the sender, repeating the message in a frustrated way."

Professor Roberto Cipolla, from the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, says, "Present day human-computer interaction still revolves around typing at a keyboard or moving and pointing with a mouse. For a lot of people, that makes computers difficult and frustrating to use. In the future, we will be able to open up computing to far more people if they can speak and gesture to machines in a more natural way. That is why we created Zoe - a more expressive, emotionally responsive face that human beings can actually have a conversation with."

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