Monday, November 26, 2012

Almax Mannequins, "I see you looking at me looking at you..."

As if the holiday shopping season were not painful enough, the mannequin manufacturer Almax, of Italy, introduced the EyeSee Mannequin which uses facial recognition software to gather data about shoppers.  As Almax proudly exclaims, "This product will do much more; it would make it possible to "observe" who is attracted by your windows and reveal important details about your customers:
Autons from Dr. Who, "Spearhead from Space"
age range; gender; race; number of people and time spent."  Almax has installed cameras in the mannequin's eyes and a computer in its torso.  By gathering data about who is looking at the mannequin, the stores hope to better market its merchandise.  What next?  Will Almax install guns in the hands of this faux humans to "protect" the store?  Mannequins are already creepy; adding the ability to secretly gather data about you when you walk past makes them dangerous.  Did no one learn about the dangers of intelligent mannequins from the Dr. Who episode "Spearhead From Space?"

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