UCSD Biometric Vending Machine

dice writes to tell us that grad students at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) are creating the first biometric vending machine. The current machine comes equipped with a barcode scanner, a fingerprint reader, and a web cam for facial recognition. One student dubbed it the "most over-designed soda machine in the world." The project, code-named "SodaVision," is the brainchild of associate professor Stefan Savage, but it was the students who really made it come to life. And yes, it runs Linux.

Comments

... SCARY ...

[TCFOO]

sorry but paying by fingerprint is a little to scary for me. it's another way for big brother to watch you.

I've been wondering about this . . .

[code shady]

They say here that they used a webcam to do the facial recognition.
I haven't RTFA yet so I'm not sure which brand or model they use, but would the average webcam provide a high enough resolution to do effective facial recognition?

Would it be possible to write a simple hack that uses the built in camera on a macbook to do the same kind of thing?

Any facial recognitiion experts out there care to weigh in?