The LookoutKraft, Intel create face-scanning meal recommendation machine
Not sure what to cook for dinner? You're not alone! According to Kraft Foods, roughly 70 percent of American consumers walk into their local markets with no idea what they'll serve up later that night. So Kraft has teamed with Intel to lend a helping hand to the indecisive masses.
The idea is to place kiosks in grocery stores outfitted with facial-scan technology, which will deliver a rough demographic profile (gender and age) of the hungry shopper in question. The kiosk will then draw on scads of marketing data to deliver a dining recommendation -- from within the Kraft family of products, of course.
Sounds like something straight out of "The Jetsons," doesn't it?
The average shopper, says Kraft's VP of retail experience, Don King, has a paltry 10 recipes in his or her average meal-time rotation: Spaghetti, pizza, hamburgers, chicken, etc. Kraft's goal is to help them expand that repertoire using, of course, Kraft products. Plus, 70% of them enter the store without a clue as to what to serve that night for dinner.
So, when he or she passes by the kiosk, the digital signage, equipped with a freaky sort of Anonymous Video Analytics technology, zooms in on his or her face and instantly determines gender and age group to guess what products might exert some allure (hopefully it won't scan your second chin and suggest half a South Beach Living Fiber Fit Bar ... nothing else). For somebody who looks like she might be a mom of school-age kids, it would presumably recommend Oscar Mayer wieners with a side of Mac 'n' Cheese. A twenty-something guy with bloodshot eyes might be directed to the Tombstone Pizza aisle.
So how long until someone files a lawsuit alleging that a kiosk made a food recommendation on the basis of some outmoded demographic stereotype? We give it a week.
(Photo: AP/Paul Sakuma)
