This article was taken from the March 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
Heart beating like a drum? Make the drum beat like your heart. BioBeats is an app that uses your iOS device to detect your heart rate, then generates custom music in any genre you choose. "This is what your heart sounds like," says David Plans, cofounder of BioBeats, the London-based company behind the app. As part of the testing, Plans held a party in San Francisco where a DJ played music based on the biometric data of the crowd: "Making music from your heart creates an emotional connection." That connection lets BioBeats, out this month, do more than just pump out cardiovascular-derived crunk, though. Pressing your finger against a device's camera for a minute allows the software to detect tiny changes in the finger's colour as blood flows, determining heart-rate and, in turn, measuring how stressed you are. "If you do that all week, we have seven days of data. We can build a graph that shows that your Tuesdays at 9am suck, and then we can help you do something about it."
Plans, 39, is preparing to combine the physiological data with social. "We can tell that something terrible happened yesterday, according to your level of stress. What was it? We're trying to work out the ethics of looking at your Facebook profile to determine whether you just broke up with someone." Plans, whose doctorate was in artificial intelligence and music, and who has built mobile apps for the NHS, says BioBeats will let users in a similar frame of mind meet one another. "If you're at Fabric, and you're single and enjoying the music, it's possible that we can tell you not just who's nearby, but who's in the same emotional state. It's connecting people through biometrics." Plans sees BioBeats music as the beginning of the "first proper adaptive media platform -- it will move into gaming and film." So if your video game isn't making your pulse pound, the software will crank up the pressure; have a tough day at work, and the AI will tee up a relaxing film for when you get home -- just what your body needs.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
