If you're a Monday morning quarterback who talks back to the television during the Oscars telecast (What were they thinking!?), then researchers at USC might just have a relief valve for you.

USC's California Annenberg Innovation Lab is pairing up with IBM and the Los Angeles Times for a groundbreaking project in the days leading up to and during Feb. 26's Academy Awards.

They're going to use Twitter to …

… find out your picks for Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Picture categories. According to a USC statement:

The project relies on new sophisticated analytics and natural language recognition technologies to gauge positive and negative opinions shared in millions of public tweets.

Professor Jonathan Taplin, director of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab:

This project is about identifying 'The People's Oscar,' which means moving beyond pundits' opinions of who the winners may be, to understanding who real moviegoers want to see receive the highest accolades of the industry.

The geeks at USC have already used the software in question, developed with IBM, for film, retail and sports forecasting. In other words, they're getting into your head via social media.

USC says the technology “distinguishes nuance and sarcasm in order to pinpoint relevant opinions of the nominated films, actors and actresses and show noteworthy trends.”

A little scary? Yes. But it all make us feel better when Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close gets Best Picture and we'll all know otherwise. Right?

Follow the data at https://graphics.latimes.com/senti-meter/.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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