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Mannequins That Watch Shoppers
SternisheFan writes with news of a creepy mannequin that watches you as you shop. From the article: "Benetton Group SpA is among fashion brands deploying mannequins equipped with technology used to identify criminals at airports to watch over shoppers in their stores. Retailers are introducing the EyeSee ... The 4,000-euro ($5,072) device has spurred shops to adjust window displays, store layouts and promotions to keep consumers walking in the door and spending. The EyeSee looks ordinary enough on the outside ... Inside, it's no dummy. A camera embedded in one eye feeds data into facial-recognition software like that used by police. It logs the age, gender, and race of passers-by. Demand for the device shows how retailers are turning to technology to help personalize their offers as growth slows in the $245 billion luxury goods industry. Bain & Co. predicts the luxury market will expand 5 percent in 2012, less than half last year's rate. 'It's a changing landscape but we're always going to be sensitive about respecting the customer's boundaries,' said spokesman Colin Johnson. ... Since the EyeSee doesn't store any images, retailers can use it as long as they have a closed-circuit television license."
They're Autons.
Since the EyeSee doesn't store any images, retailers can use it as long as they have a closed-circuit television license."
Can someone European (or British, I expect?) explain this point? I know about the Beeb's "TV license", but thought that applied only if you use a TV to watch OTA content. For closed circuit, what the hell do you pay for?
I thought that theories about human races have been debunked as unscientific myths a long, long time ago?
i have clothes from Wal Mart that have outlasted some of the snobby store shit i've bought for 10 times the price
most of this luxury crap is crappy quality wrapped up in a snobby store experience
i used to buy $350 Mephisto shoes until they started to fall apart on me after 6 months. I can buy $150 shoes that last longer
... is pretty frightening when you get down to it. The government doesn't have to do a thing it will all happen to "stop the bad guys" under the guise of legitimate reasons.
since when? agree to be filmed? which magical kingdom is this where store owners need such permissions?
it'll just tell you what kind of people visit your store. this is of limited use to very few stores on earth where the store owner or any employee doesn't bother to visually see what kind of people are coming to the store. the article mentions personalization many times but the product mentions many times it only stores information that's not identifiable to a person.
the real statistic that the store owner cares is quite simply what products are selling - and they have that. it's not like their profiling is going to tell what product will sell 6 months from now, they'll just know what size people come in and oogle at their novelty mannequin. and if they're going to really start personalizing offers.. fuck no, I hate haggling - especially robot haggling.
also - 4000 bucks for a webcam? that's luxury product right there.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
And you have a complete store security system. The mannequin spots the shoplifters, and the Boxer whacks them.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
They'll send Jim Caviezel to follow you around if you decide not to buy anything.
Just awesome. Because it strips the imaging of the wanted data in real-time and doesn't store an "image", it's respecting the law.
This is actually really good. We need a better public awareness about Image in the way we've been using it. What matters isn't a photographic-image, it's an Image more like a celebrity has an Image. JPG is just as much a besides-the-point miss-association with the Thing as Kodachrome.
Awareness, and thus legislation, really needs to catch up with that, and this tech might really help resolve it.
I know, why don't they have helicopter drones follow shoppers to make sure no area is left uncovered.
Retailers have used cameras hidden in mannequin eyes for over 20 years. And they have been using facial recognition on CCTV feeds since the technology became available to them. This just puts the two products together inside one package.
John
LOL, the first Dr. Who episode in the new series!!!
Now shops will make mannequins even more creepy.
I'm a human and I can't accurately judge age, gender, and race very well a significantly portion of the time. There's no way a robot could do better at such a subjective, human-specialized task.
Of course they've been debunked. It's like the Bohr model of the atom. We know it isn't right, but it helps simplify the conversation.
In this case though I think they are in for a rough road when applying it to marketing. Where I live there are people of Mexican origin, people with African ancestors, people with European ancestors and plenty of those that combine two or more. The odd thing is you can be the same rich mocha color as a nearly-pure Mexican as you can being half African, and yet the two seem to prefer very different clothing, and after two weeks Hawaii I can be this color, for a little while before I revert back to my Casper-look-a-like hue, but my tastes in clothes don't change.
As for the water-muddying idea of trying to augment your skin tone evaluation with facial features, that's going to be difficult too. You don't get to choose a reference skull angle for everyone to hold their head at, or (without annoying the crap out of your customers) get nearly enough light on their faces.
But the important thing here is that shop keepers are buying expensive gear under the illusion that the statistics that it's supplying about their customers are valid. And that will sell the Eye See product. Bain & Company will get richer.
Humans are much much better at guessing people's heritage at a glance. And they can do this in poor lighting due to the hundreds of visual cues and correlations the computer can't track. A human with a clip board visiting your shop 1 day per quarter could give you a significantly more accurate list, including useful checkboxes as "richly dressed" and "poorly dressed" which computers entirely suck at but girlfriends seem to excel at.
Mannequin looks at YOU! Eh? Maybe? Sorry...
What're you lookin' at? Huh? You lookin' at me? ANSWER ME!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
They should create a mannequin that morphs into the person it's observing, maybe it could just steal the face of the person since body sizes are so drastically different, but then you could "see yourself" in the clothes that the mannequin is modeling. That'd be cool, and super creepy. Just the sort of future we here at Slashdot prefer! :)
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Until it has ass recognition, it will remain blind to Freemasons everywhere.
They should create a mannequin that morphs into the person it's observing, maybe it could just steal the face of the person since body sizes are so drastically different ...
Why are they placing this in mannequins' eyes? They just figured that mannequins approximate people and people see with their eyes, so voila? There are many face-level places to stash a camera that wouldn't "spur shops to adjust window displays and store layouts" and cause owners to rearrange the store to place a dummy somewhere that doesn't make sense. Forget the mannequin and put the camera in the wall! Place it in the rear of a window display! Stick it in a mannequin's eye if you want to! Then wire the data to the security room and analyze and log it there.
Or, just stop being invasive and don't do it at all. I would love to find a way to determine actual ROI on this type of investment. I would guess (and hope) that the results would be dismal.
Have a listen :)
We don't need them to be that human just to model clothes.
so the petite model suddenly becomes plus sized, rips through the clothing, and is now naked. A naked rendition of me. Are you trying to kill people?
as growth slows in the $245 billion luxury goods industry.
The rich have all the money already. They aren't "luxurious" to the filthy rich. Until money is in the hands of the average Joe again, a lot of industries can expect things to slow down.
Unless the mannequins can accurately distinguish Timelords from ordinary humans by purely visual means, in time to hide themselves in the back room and pretend to be ordinary mannequins.
I always feel like somebody's watching me.
I'm just an average man with an average life
I work from nine to five, hey, hell, I pay the price
All I want is to be left alone in my average home
But why do I always feel like I'm in the twilight zone
I always feel like somebody's watching me
And I have no privacy
I always feel like somebody's watching me
Tell me is it just a dream
When I come home at night
I bolt the door real tight
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
I'm picturing a very bored T-1000. Perhaps one of the underachievers that never quite mastered human extermination.
'It's a changing landscape but we're always going to be sensitive about respecting the customer's boundaries,' said spokesman Colin Johnson. ...
It really sounds like it.. and that's good! Now, I'm really looking forward to seeing all those mannequins just welcoming my dollars in their stores. Oh baby!! N O T !!
That does it, never again will I stop in front of a Victoria's Secret store and look at the sexy stuff in the window.
Well, this is good news for the mannequins, job security and they can get paid a bit more per hour now!
Does it set off the shoplifting alarm automatically when it sees three or more young black males enter the store together? It's bad enough that the police use this sort of profiling to harrass certain groups, but rolling it out to the private security firms that monitor store CCTV is really distasteful.
... logs the age, gender, and race of passers-by.
What? Nobody remembers 'Minority report' where the shop cameras recognize the main character as he walks by.
Once the hardware is in place, it's easy to upgrade the software. Thankfully, recognizing a 3D face with a 2D camera rarely works.