Automatically determining a user's mood is something we've always heard as being important for Windows Live Messenger but knew that the technology was years away from being ready. In WLM 2009, we even took a nice first step introducing Dynamic Photos, which let you manually associate a photo with an emoticon/mood.

We're happy to announce that due to the great breakthroughs from Microsoft Research, we have an alpha version working that monitors your real-time physiological state and translates that into a mood (happy, sad, anxious, etc), such that you would never have to enter an emoticon again. At the core of this technology is the patented Human Attitude Heuristic Algorithm, which uses simple instruments, such as a body heat monitor, webcam and keypad pressure sensor to automatically determine your mood and appropriately insert emoticons/phrases directly into your IM conversations... saving you both time and energy.