Some firms in China train their customer service staff members to smile with a chopstick. Keep it between your teeth. Don’t touch it with your lips. And above all, don’t drop it. You. Will. Smile. Understood?

Link -via American Digest | Photo: Asianews

Lauren McCarthy created the Happiness Hat – a gadget that detects whether or not you’re smiling. If you’re not, it drives a small metal spike into the back of your head to encourage to you resolve that problem quickly:

An enclosed bend sensor attaches to the cheek and measures smile size, a servo motor moves a metal spike into the head inversely proportional to the degree of smile. Through repeated use of this conditioning device you can train your brain to smile all the time. The device runs on Arduino.

Link via Geekologie

UPDATE 10/29: The YouTube video’s status was switched to private, so I swapped it out for a Vimeo version.

Unlike at the Virginia DMV, where smiling is forbidden, employees at the Keihin Electric Express Railway in Japan are required to get their smiles computer-checked before clocking in for work:

The device analyzes the facial characteristics of a person, including eye movements, lip curves and wrinkles, and rates a smile on a scale between 0 and 100 percent using a camera and computer.

For those with low scores, advice like “You still look too serious,” or “Lift up your mouth corners,” will be displayed on the screen.

Some 530 employees of the Tokyo-based railway company will check their smiles with Smile Scan before starting work each day. They will print out and carry around an image of their best smile in an attempt to remember it.

Be happy! You have no other choice.

Link