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SceneTap Patents Using Cameras To Determine Bar Goers' Weight, Height, Gender
nonprofiteer writes with news on what SceneTap has been up to for the last few months since. From the article: "SceneTap uses facial recognition technology to help bar-hoppers decide which night spot to go to based on how crowded a bar is and what the age and gender ratio is. ... Despite the fact that what the app does now is fairly innocuous. But what the app could do in the future, as described in a patent application filed in June, is pretty creepy. The patent application describes much more detailed data collection, including bar goers' race, height, weight, attractiveness, hair color, clothing type, and the presence of facial hair or glasses, and includes other possibilities usually left to the realm of dystopic fiction, including putting microphones in the cameras that could detect what customers are saying, and using facial recognition technology to identify customers and then get information about them from social networking websites and databases to determine 'relationship status, intelligence, education and income for the entire venue.'"
Whelp, time to bust out my narwhal outfit, platform shoes and monocle every time I hit the bars.
Great ice breakers at least.
My work here is dung.
Are they going to place the cameras and microphones behind their other patent, the "telescreen"? While we are at it, let's call this company the "Ministry of Love".
sudo make me a sandwich
share all your tipping the strippers to your facebook account. or better yet the strippers will scan the patrons in a back room and then work the ones which the system predicts will tip the mos
And when they do that watch the lawsuits roll! There is a reason no public camera have microphones on them....
I don't think this is patentable. The patent basically says where they would put cameras in the venue to record various things. That's what cameras do: they record stuff. Allowing a patent on that would be silly. To try and make it patentable, the patent states the specific camera positions such as "located about one foot (30.5 centimeters) away from the entranceway or (ii) located from about eight feet (2.4 meters) to about fifteen feet (4.6 meters) above the floor. "
So if that patent is awarded, could someone patenting putting cameras in *insert place here* to record *recordable event here*? Could I patent putting putting a camera on my car to record accidents and license plates? Perhaps I just need to say "about one foot in front of the windshield" to make it patentable? Could I patent putting a recording device in my pocket to record conversations? Perhaps I will say "about 6 inches deep in my pocket" or "in either a shirt pocket or a pants pocket" to make it *seem* more patent-worthy without actually saying anything.
Somehow, I don't even think the rubber-stamping patent office will let this one pass.
I'd pay for an app that tells me the average weight of the chicks at a bar before I go there. Even better, the simple quantity of non-fat girls.
See that "Preview" button?
If they patent this, but never use it, could they use their patent to keep others from inventing and patenting the "microphone add-on?" Wouldn't a broad patent give them a legal way to keep others from making creative and invasive additions?
The problem occurs when some ignorant people start believing that the myths. I saw this happen once on a work thing I was forced to attend. A quack presenter was telling us all these ways we could judge people just by looking at them. if the person played with their change they were cheap, if they looked up they were dishonest, and on and on. Now I will admit that these things may be true in many if not most cases, but to build a profile of a person assuming they are true all the time. That is ludicrous, especially as this information was presented to professionals who would then make judgements on people that would effect their future.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
TapMeNot uses database technology to tell you where SceneTap has placed its cameras to help bar-hoppers decide which night spot not to go to.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
...NOT to go to a bar.
Only guys care ht, wt, s. What women care is car. They should photograph car with lic # and use database to find out house price, where he works, how much he makes, is he married, divorcee, single, how many kids, criminal records etc.
Make an app that can tell me what pheromones are floating around. Using predictive technology that knows how hot the user is how hot the appropriate sex at the bar is, and how hot the competition is, the app could determine, to great precision, how likely you are to get laid.
B.t.w. There really was a 50's science fiction short story about an inventor that made just such a device, although you had to carry it into the bar, it wasn't remote. (Don't remember the name or the collection)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
The application was not "filed in June." The application was published in June. From TFPA (after all, the link is to a patent application, not an article):
PRIORITY CLAIM
[0001] This application claims priority to and the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/422,895, filed Dec. 14, 2010, entitled "Method of Monitoring or Tracking Customer Demographics and Volume in a Venue or Similar Facility", the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference and relied upon.
The provisional patent application was made on 14 December 2010. The full utility patent application was made on 13 December 2011 (also from TFPA). The reason the application was published in June 2012 is that the utility application claims the priority date of the provisional application, and June was eighteen months after that date.
Coming soon to a venue close to you:
Two pints please
Here you go, that will be 10,-
10,-? The previous two were 8,-, surely you made a mistake?
Nay, the total income for this joint just went through the roof, must be that bunch of leeches in suits who came in a few minutes ago. Prices are set according to some fancy profit-maximizing model, and that model told my cash register to charge more. Sorry 'bout that...
--frank[at]unternet.org
... but this is just disgusting, and the same technology will be used (for marketing purposes) in stores and restaurants and all kinds of other public places. Thieves, stalkers, and predators as well as advertisers will gain access to this data. And pretty soon, you may as well have one of those ankle monitors on, because the police will inevitably want to know where you are and what you do at all times.
It's a bar, there will be booze, some girls and some guys. Make the most of it.
Dancer with embedded NFC chips for tipping...
Or possibly bluetooth, if you aren't too picky about pairing with a stripper.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Most bars and dance clubs are total sausage festivals, no sane business owner wants customers to know this prior to arrival. SceneTap is a novelty now but don't expect it to catch on.
Thieves, stalkers, and predators as well as advertisers...
But you repeat yourself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Such as masses of hot women directed to hard-core gay bars, to help "correct the gender balance", or something.
I call bullshit.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
never understood the appeal of bars, loud, (used to be) smokey, crowded, expensive
you could get the same experience at home free by locking yourself in a coat closet with boombox that has no volume control that is set to play music you don't like
also you would have to buy name brand liquor, pour it out, and fill the bottles with bottom shelf liquor, and whenever you want a drink you would have to make yourself wait 10 minutes
yeah I don't like bars
... for the first time facial recognition software incorrectly identifies an ordinary schlub as a major celebrity and sends crazed fans/paparazzi to a small neighborhood joint.
A successful female bar owner told me this a while back:
"Just make your bar a place that women like to come to. If there are women there, men will follow."
That old rule trumps any high tech.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The New York times wrote about it back in 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20020321thursday.html
and multiple companies advertise hardware to do this: IdentiBar Drivers License Scanning solutions for Nightclubs and Bars.
Some liquor stores and grocery stores also scan when you're purchasing alcohol. While it's supposed to be illegal, at least in Illinois to use this to acquire and retain address information (cite according to Illinois legal aid, companies sell marketing solutions where they explicitly claim that they can and will retain and market this data.
Have you ever seen someone obviously well over drinking age also getting scanned ahead of you and they say it is only just policy. That's probably the clear sign that they're collecting data to sell it, rather than just to check age on possible underage drinkers.
It's enough to make you paranoid. :>)
Whatever happened to "hey, I'm going fishing. Want to go?" Its how I met my future wife....
That is one advanced system if it can detect gender. I would have been happy if it could just identify the sex of each person. Gender identity is complicated stuff for humans. ~
Ascii artist &
A process by which I can garner information, steps for process:
1) Gather inputs
2) Lookup data
3) Present results.
I believe that their is definitely no prior art for this patent and I can see multiple potential uses for it in the future.
I embrace this technology. If they offer an API, it would be easy to write a NoFatties iPhone app. To really capture the market I would also write a ChubbyChaser app.
Before getting excited about any new system, the first question would be, how hard is this to hack? All a bar owner would need to do is have a few pretty girls come in the front door and out the back and the system will start saying that the bar has more women in it than it does. And let the fat ugly fat guys come in the back as well.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
You guys are talking about a sliding scale for the booze, but you're missing the biggest opportunity here which is for people to pay for score inflation. And of course for other people to pay even more for transparency through the score inflation scheme. Bronze level is free and you get what you get. Silver level you get to shave 5 years and add a market adjusted 1 sigma to your income. Gold level is ten years and 2 sigmas, etc. Of course Gold level "peeper" subscriptions get to see the truth about all Silver level data hiders, and so on. Freeking goldmine. I'm calling the patent office, brb.
They were filming for an episode of Bar Rescue. The owner had authorized the production company to place cameras and mic's everywhere to track the employees, which incidently tracked every patron in the bar as well. When I pointed out that I felt it was an invasion of my privacy the manager told me I was paranoid, while that may be... my four friends and I made sort of a scene and numerous other patrons became involved. The bottom line was about 9 people got up and went across the street to another bar to finish up the evening. I have not nor will I ever go back to Nick's. I doubt we'll affect the bottom line but I also doubt that was the effect the owner was hoping for.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
They should use the algorithm to detect gay people in television shows and either delete them from the show, or better yet, modify their voices, faces and body language so that they're not acting gay any more. Unless of course, you really believe that they were born with those abnormal voices.