Days are not far away when satellite navigation (satnav) system, which provides turn by turn direction to motorists, will be able to detect users' moods and react accordingly.

Head of emotional robotics at Cambridge University, Prof Peter Robinson, is working on a system that will be able to react according to users' moods. The software under development will allow smart computers to detect users' facial expressions, tone of voice and moods. The potential emotionally intelligent satnav systems will be able to read users' mind and react accordingly.

A number of sensors will be used to let smart computers to detect the mood of a user. It will notice a user's facial expressions, voice tone and hand gestures to detect his/her mood.

Prof Robinson's emotionally intelligent software has already proved 70 per cent successful in detecting a user's mood.

Speaking on the existing computer systems, Prof Robinson said, "The problem is computers don't react to how I feel - if I'm pleased or annoyed they just ignore me.

He added that he hated the fact that today's computers can understand what someone is saying, but can not understand how he/she is saying.