Slashdot Mirror
Grocery Store "Smart Shelves" Will Identify Customers, Show Targeted Ads
cagraham writes "Snack company Mondelez International (maker of Oreos, Trident, Cadbury eggs) will introduce so-called 'smart shelves' into store checkout aisles beginning 2015. The shelves will use Microsoft's Kinect software, in addition to other tech, to identify shoppers age and sex, and will then use that info to deliver demographically tailored advertisements. The shelves will be able to track engagement, monitor how long customer's watch each ad, and offer discounts if a customer is considering a purchase (weight sensors will tell the machine if you pick up a product). Mondelez says the software will only use and collect aggregate data, and will not record any video or photos."
Especially once we figure out how to 'convince' it to give us the best discount on everything.
Humans are lousy at reading humans, machines programmed by humans and used on the cheap will be relatively easy to fool.
the condom section is going to go nuts....
I for one have no interest in such targeted advertising, and until they become ubiquitous I'll avoid any store that has these.
Can you imagine where this will go? Shelf notices that you're overweight and you picked up a candy bar? Screen says, "Are you sure you want to buy that?" This will work great until someone puts a sticker over the sensor bar.
Yet.
Authority questions you. Return the favor. -- d474
It'll never happen, but I'm sure they've been used as an end-around credit card privacy laws. I remember when my local grocer first introduced them. The prices of everything went up overnight, then you needed their card to get the same old prices. The thought that they might make advertising to me even more interactive isn't at all appealing.
And, as for just switching grocery stores, I don't know where most of you live but here in KC I only have 2 practical choices (without a long drive).
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
At first you offer it for free. You convince people how important it is to them. Then you dangle them on a leash and make them think they are getting a discount. Then once they CANT LIVE WITHOUT IT you make them pay full price!!!
It would assist in a vandalism charge, just like it would if you used it on the cash registers, in-store speaker system, or vending machines. With the closed-circuit surveillance the stores already have for shoplifting, the trial would be speedy, and you'd likely be found liable for the replacement cost of the device, plus penalties.
But hey, at least you'd have given a clear message to the store manager: You're a psychopath who carries a taser to intentionally damage someone else's property at the slightest provocation. That was the message you wanted to send, right?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If the advertising becomes really bubbled I can see an issue where attractive people are shown healthy products and ugly people are shown unhealthy products because that's what their respective profiles are probably going to indicate that they want... It's like the Search Engine Bubble (http://dontbubble.us/) - except for advertising.
This trend is obviously unhealthy...
Time to start wearing burkas?
They promised to not use your personal data until....they changed TOS. Then they promised to use it only for ads....until they changed TOS. Then they promised not to f**** you......until they changed TOS.
Stereotypes are a crude biologically-formed statistical analysis, stored in cultural memory and transmitted through oral and theatrical tradition.
These systems will use a highly-refined statistical analysis, stored in The Cloud and transmitted through wired and wireless networks.
Both will ultimately determine that people who have spent time in Australia are more likely to buy iocaine powder than a Sicilian. The latter system will just be able to tell you exactly how much more likely.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
A bar I used to go to put little monitors above the urinals, displaying advertising. They didn't even last a full night.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Mondelez says the software will only use and collect aggregate data, and will not record any video or photos.
...at first. Later on we make no promises.
Seriously, if this can be abused it will be.
May I suggest that anyone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask gets bombarded with adverts for t-shirts with "TWAT" written on them?
I have the dubious pleasure of being exposed to some of this tech, what's amusing is it does know who I am, but insist that I am also married.
In fact every record I search on the Inet (pipl, spokeo, etc) all say I am married.
I used to drink my share, but I don't recall ever getting that drunk so where is this marriage coming from?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
this is consumer capitalism at its finest. No longer do we care about making a particularly good or useful product anymore. the focus is determining who is looking at the product, and custom tailoring a set of deceptive or manipulative advertising based on gender and age. Its desparation.
Ive worked at a grocery store, so i can tell you this kind of crap is pervasive.. ultimately most people are so sick and tired of consumer capitalisms model of tricking us into buying garbage, that its all they can do to enter $Grocery_store and purchase the goods they need with a minimum of hassle. Grocery chains use different kinds of music and even sizes of floor tiles throughout the building to control shoppers walking speeds, they run vanilla airfresheners in the bakery department to ensure you always think something fresh is cooking, and they only fire up the 40 bird rotisserie during dinner hours. yearly, or more frequently, they also decide to completely revamp the store and put all the goods in different locations. if you make it past this insanity and find the toilet paper you originally wanted, you'll have to fight a kind of mathematic jigsaw puzzle more sinister than reaganomics that largely just ends up making you buy what grocers want you to. the asinine barking video adverts on some shelves already exist. theyre triggered by motion and they drive shoppers, in my observation, into a bath-salts rage most of the time. whats worse is all this stuff in a grocery store comes together as a 'perfect storm' during food-based holidays. the music, the smells, the colors, and everything designed to get normal shoppers to spend a few bucks more, sends people into sectarian violence during thanksgiving. I've seen customers literally beat eachother in the aisles for the last tin of pumpkin pie filling without so much as considering the 3 pallets of generic brand we keep in the far hinterlands near the milk. targeting things to customers wont work as well as you think.
Stockers. stockers drive huge wooden pallets of cereal and such up and down aisles for restock. most of the boxes have smiling faces on them, so expect 200 or so encounters from the same middle aged man who never touches the product as he rolls down aisle 6 to be broken up, and placed on a shelf. these pallets are pretty big too, so dont expect third shift stockers to care that much if your camera gets nailed by 2000lbs of slow-moving watermelon on its way to produce. these guys routinely rip off coupon dispensers and colored banners hanging out of the aisles, and whatever ends up on the floor after 3rd shift usually gets thrown in the trash by first 1st shift clean crews.
those loyalty cards. dont think for a minute your information isnt getting added from the advert to the card, or isnt somehow related, because it absolutely is. The card seriously knows more about who you are as a person than your closest loved ones, and is used to routinely provide a pavlovian treat to bad customers in order to get them to become good ones. the popularity of an item drives inversely its sale price, so expect the AI from the advert system to factor into this as well as restock levels and future pricing.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Can't we go anywhere without being subjected to advertisements?
No, but you can learn the joy that comes from playing "make it stop talking".
Try this as an experiment - Wait for a reasonably busy day at Target (a particularly egregious offender for this experiment). Go up to one of their many end-cap monitors screaming ads at you.
And... Turn it off (some of them have no off switch, in which case, just unplug it). Simple as that.
At first people will look shocked, then guiltily relieved, as realization slowly dawns on them - You've done nothing wrong, and the screeching has stopped! A few will even take up the "cause", and on a good day, you can get a wave of ad-lessness to spread out from your starting point that keeps the store basically ad-free until the end of the day, when sadly, everyone will have forgotten that they don't need to put up with it.
Call me petty if you like, but little pleasures make life enjoyable. And I, for one, look forward to sensors that can weigh the product on the shelves, just to see how much fun we can have screwing with their error handling - How do they react to someone taking "half" of a can of tuna fish? How about adding one? Replacing one with two gallons of water? Fun fun fun!
Oh no, it won't say that.. It will go something like this...
"Mr. Jones! You need to buy this month's issue of "insert title here" or I'm going to tell Mrs. Jones on Isle 3 about you... "
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Will they also track the frequency at which people "accidentally" smash these things?
They already know I'm a middle aged single geek. How many more erectile dysfunction and over 50 dating site ads can they throw at me? And here's a clue for you ad programmers. If I need the erectile dysfunction pills, I don't need the dating sites and if I need the dating sites, I don't need the erectile dysfunction pills. Now get off my lawn!