Face of the future

, manufacturers of the popular Yaris, Prius and Verso, plans to install mind-reading technology in its vehicles by 2010, so that the key mental states of the driver such as drowsiness, anger or distraction, can be detected and acted upon.

Drawing on work at Cambridge University's Computer Laboratory, the technology identifies 24 feature points on the face and tracks them in real-time. Movement, shape and skin colour are then analysed to identify gestures like a smile, frown or a raised eyebrow. Taken cumulatively, the mental condition of the driver will then be able to be predicted.

Dr Rana el Kaliouby of project partner MIT's Media Laboratory, said: 'My specific work with Cambridge was to develop face spatial analysis that analyses in real-time to associate different facial combinations and configurations to establish relevant underlying states.'

The key mental states the manufacturer is concerned with are drowsiness, as well as cognitive distraction, which can come in four forms - through being lost, if a road is monotonous, auditory distractions such as mobile phone use, and visually when the driver turns to talk to a passenger.