If you are flying British Airways, the in-flight entertainment may soon be you. That’s because people will be able to read your mood just by looking at your blanket — a “Happiness Blanket” supplied by the airline.
The airline began testing the blanket last week on seven volunteers flying from Heathrow to New York. What does the blanket do, exactly? It “visually shows the wellbeing of a passenger in real time by changing colour to reflect their mood while on-board,” according to the British Airways website.
Here’s how it works: Passengers wear a headband that measures tiny electrical fluctuations in the neurons of the brain. Those fluctuations are sent via Bluetooth, every second, to fiber optic lights woven into the blanket. If the blanket turns red, the passenger is stressed out; if it turns blue, the passenger is relaxed.
