Posted on 11/23/2012 12:00:48 PM PST by BenLurkin
Fashion stores are using bionic mannequins equipped with police-grade technology to spy on shoppers. The $5,000 dummies, called EyeSee, use facial recognition software as a noninvasive way to extract data from customers who walk by, including roundabout age, race and gender, Bloomberg.com reported.
A tiny camera embedded in one of the mannequin’s eyes records the information.
The info can be used to help stores cater to their customer base. For example, one store that learned many of its afternoon visitors were kids introduced a children’s line to boost sales. Another that learned many of its customers were Asian opted to put Chinese-speaking employees near the entrance, according to the website.
Although the mannequins only record information — not photographs — creeped-out shoppers voiced concern online.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Guess I’ll just buy everything at Walmart.......
Isn’t it bigoted and racial/ethnic profiling, to observe that there are Asian customers, and have Chinese speaking employees? Isn’t it bigoted to somehow assume that these Asian customers don’t speak English? Don’t liberals lecture us about this stuff all the time???
Buying stuff isn’t much fun anymore. It just feels black.
They should outfit one with lasers and a minigun for the flashmob yutes.
Couldn’t normal employee and marketing personnel make these same observations without the cost and nonsense of this BS?
I mean, telling who’s a child and who’s Asian isn’t exactly rocket science
In other words, they’re using technology to accomplish things managers used to do back in the days when managers actually managed.
No minimum wage, no overtime, no workers comp, no payroll tax, no strikes, no discrimination charges, no sexual harassment charges, no "shrinkage", no scheduling issues, no sick time, no ObamaCare...
exactly
An observant human could determine this information. However, I don’t like it and would be less likely to shop at stores with this technology.
How is this any better than hiding a camera anywhere else?
People look at the mannequins?
“facial recognition” I think you nailed that one.
Another reason to shop on-line.
I agree! When I first read the title I thought “this is news?” these have been around for years! I remember reading about these in the 90’s. Since then I know cameras have improved but now we have the flash mobs. So now they should shoot out laser blasts! Or something.
ya gotta be kiddin me...
What? It's one of the best cracks ever posted on FR!
The robots will be more accurate because they will do it constantly while employees will do it when they remember, and faster.
Then you better be ready to never shop again. Pretty soon they’ll all have it. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, demographic data is the most important data for retails, who is buying what where and how often makes all business decisions more likely to succeed.
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