We already knew that Microsoft had some mind reading technology (of sorts) in the works, but it looks like it isn't stopping there, with a recent patent application revealing some of the company's plans for "monitoring group activities." To do that, Microsoft envisions a rather elaborate monitoring system that'd consist of an array of "physiological or environmental sensors." Those would be used to monitor heart rate, galvanic skin response, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, facial expressions, and blood pressure, to name just a few personal details most folks would likely rather keep to themselves. That'll supposedly let the system detect when users need assistance with specific activities, and in turn offer them help or assign the task to someone else. But that's not all. As The Register points out, the patent application also makes it quite clear that the information would be stored away for future use, which would apparently allow for problems to be more easily identified and, you guessed it, allow for users' performance to be more readily compared with others.

[Via The Register]