Virtual Reality for Good: A Brighton-based VR startup that’s putting smiles on people’s faces

Emteq are a Brighton-based virtual reality start up that have developed groundbreaking technology that can track emotions through facial sensors.

The emotion-sensing technology has a vast number of applications from gaming to marketing; the tech is making a big impact within the healthcare industry. Emteq are pioneering new technology within the emerging digital VR health space and they are certainly ones to watch.

The technology is already helping sufferers of Facial Palsy — a condition that affects the facial muscles meaning sufferers can not perform functions such as smiling or raising eyebrows.

Emteq featured on BBC News South East

Part of the rehabilitation process involves practicing muscles movements with a specialist — which means spending a lot of time looking in the mirror. Emteq have developed a system that allows treatment to occur in a virtual world. Instead of looking into a mirror, patients see the face of an avatar which is controlled directly through facial sensors on the headset. This relieves the patient of staring into the mirror for long periods of time which can become quite unsettling.

“Emteq builds on this foundation by using multi-modal biometric sensors to detect and track facial expressions and arousal indicators together with Artificial Intelligence techniques to interpolate this data into emotional state.” Emteq.net

As well as facial palsy — the tech can be applied to many different types of treatments and areas. Emteq’s Science Officer Dr Charles Nduka recdently described emotional interaction as the missing link in virtual reality — this type of technology will help us move into Fourth Generation of VR input.

It’s so inspiring to see a company achieving so much and helping to improve people’s lives through technology. We at Confab Social have proudly been working with Emteq to develop their social media strategy.

Scroll down to take a look at some the exciting things they’ve been up to…

Emteq on BBC Click

Emteq at a recent talk on AI by VentureThree

MedCrunch article on Emteq Neuroscientist Dr Charles Nduka

Article by Dr Charles Nduka for VR Focus magazine

Emteq featured in the Mail on Sunday

Emteq on BBC Click

Emteq Founder Graeme Cox spoke at an event for Digital Brighton Festival

Emteq at this year’s AWE2017 Munich

Dr Charles Nduka writes for Virtual Reality Pop

Follow Emteq on Twitter to see for yourself what they’ve been up to!