Cheap face-recognition is now available to merchants for just $880 dollars per month per store. Using a simple PC and video camera system, the service makes use of face-recognition software powered by NEC's cloud computing services to estimate the age and gender of clients, and tracks frequency of shopping across locations.
Its amazing how quickly applications go from the military to civilian life, isn't it?
Now, the unpleasant future shown in Steven Spielberg's 2002 movie Minority Report can be yours! In this scene, Tom Cruise (with newly implanted eyes from a Mr. Yakimoto) enters a store.
In the film, the particular technology is an iris scanner that actually identifies individual shoppers. I note that NEC does not quite offer this level of service - yet.
SHEPHERD-MIL, A Birdlike Soaring UAV
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'- Philip E. High, 1968.
AXON Flex And Stross' Cop Specs
'Arriving on SOC... Start evidence log." [E]verything you see on duty goes into the black box.'- Charles Stross, 2007.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'
Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'