Some people of Chicago have a pretty scientific method to decide where they will spend their night. With their Smartphone, they use the application SceneTap, which provide them real time information into their local bars in terms of frequenting, atmosphere, average age and male-female ratio with 90 % margin of error!
The startup SceneTap uses facial detection and people counting cameras to scope out your local bar, coffee shop or lounge to tell you “what is going on over there”. What is the male to female ratio at your favorite club? Who is buying drinks? The way it works is that there is a camera facing the door and analyzes what type of people are coming in, what they are buying and when they come and go.
Each human face are analyze and those images are immediately sent to a server coupled to a database containing nearly 500,000 faces of anonymous volunteers, men and women of all ages and all ethnic groups. A pretty interesting concept, however, SceneTap is submitted to controversy because the information is collected without people’s consent, it does bring the issue of personal privacy.
So do you think this is a brilliant idea or a potential security risk?
By Emmanuel Borges
No comments:
Post a Comment