Spotify To Soon Suggest Music Based On Your ’Emotional State’

Spotify will analyze the mood and suggest songs to users based on its patented technology the company has announced.

The new feature and technology will track your emotions, environment and play songs that best suit your emotional state, gender, age, and accent.

Spotify explained: "It is common for a media streaming application to include features that provide personalized media recommendations to a user.

"It should be understood that the above example metadata categories of emotions, gender, age, and accent are merely examples, and numerous other characterizations and classifications can be used."

The technology will combine the data with other information, including a user's previously-played songs, and their friends' taste in music to choose what music to play.

In September, Spotify patented a karaoke-like feature that allows people to "overlay a music track with their own vocals". And earlier this week, it gained permission for a "cadence-based media content selection engine," which matches the tempo of your music to your running speed.

Last year, it also conducted a study of how people's personality traits influence their musical preferences.

The streaming service with 320m global users, has been granted a patent that would allow it to use such insights to promote content that has been tweaked to appeal to a listener's personality.

"In some embodiments in which the personalized content includes one or more messages with audio components," explains the patent, "the electronic device changes a tone of voice for messages for presentation to the user."

"For example, the tone of voice may be more upbeat, high-pitched and/or exciting for users that have been assigned the personality trait of extroversion."

Spotify has however been cautioned against implementing it without due consideration of the ethical implications.

"We recognize that one's digital history is extraordinarily personal and sensitive," they wrote in their paper. "As such it must be treated with proper consideration of the conceivable misuses... from its access.

"We disavow any future research or applications that violate ethical standards of data usage and are not transparent about privacy to its users"