Saturday, August 28, 2010

Japanese "Smart" Vending Machine Recommends Soft Drink Based On Looks

This futurisic "Smart" vending machine is installed at Shinagawa Station in Tokoyo, Japan. 

From the article at Youtube, it has a 47 inch screen and there is a camera installed and with 75% accuracy but imaging your face what your age and sex are and recommends specific beverages by putting a red star burst over an image of the beverage. It costs 5 times what a standard vending machine would cost.

It also is connected to via high speed internet and displays news and images (and likely other ads).  To select your beverage, you touch the screen, pay with an ICCard and you get your drink within seconds.

We are getting closer and closer to an Orwellian future.  While it might be an interesting novelty, I personally don't want a machine telling me what it thinks I should drink.   I would be ticked if it only lite up only the diet products because it thinks I should lose weight. 

The only thing that I like about it is that it indicates in the event of an earthquake it will give out beverages for free to the disaster victims.   But that also begs the questions of is it really earthquake-proof and as it is an electronic gadget, usually an earthquake with knock out the electricity - are they going to have a backup generator?

What do you think of this machine?

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