We don't expect this to be indicative of any near-term projects for the now financially hindered phone maker, but one of Sony Ericsson's recently unearthed patents paves the way for some interesting uses. From what we gather, while listening to music on your device, a picture of your face would be taken. That image would then be run through software that interprets your mood, and an appropriate next song based on those emotions would be picked -- so much for the art of mixtapes. Presumably, it'd also require a phone or device with a camera mounted on the same side as the screen, so unless mobile video conferencing takes off in a huge way, we can't see people paying extra for a phone or device with this configuration. And if you just got dumped over SMS, we hope it doesn't intepret those tears as a good time to play that Damien Rice song you two fell in love with. Hit up the read link for the full patent details.

[Via Slash Gear]

Okay, okay, maybe we went a little rough on Pantech's SKY IM-R100 on the first go around, panning it for offering nothing of particular value in its bizarre pivot-slide form factor. It turns out we missed one important detail: the IM-R100 will be Pantech's first handset to integrate Oki's FaceSensingEngine, a relatively lightweight face recognition system that's supposedly well-suited to devices with limited memory and processor power. Oki claims that faces can be locked onto in 115 milliseconds and tracked in just 35 in a variety of indoor and outdoor lighting situations. For their part, Pantech is initially using the system to automatically center the camera when taking pictures, but we have to assume there are some gaming applications to be found here as well. So again, IM-R100, we're sorry for beating up on ya the first time around; lesson learned.

[Via Slashphone]