LIFESTYLE
19
theSun ONWEDNESDAY | JULY 21, 2010
BY HATICE KILICER
T
HERE ARE
many examples of
how companies use technology
to find out as much as possible
about their customers.
Personalised Internet
advertisements, customer cards that
store data about a shopper’s buying
habits and countless market surveys are
just a few.
They typically use the data they
collect to place their products as
precisely as possible in the market to
capture their buyers’ interest.
In a new twist on data collection used
on shoppers, researchers in Karlsruhe,
Germany, have developed a facial
recognition software that could be used
by retailers tomake assumptions about
shopping habits.
The software can recognise faces and
tell the gender and age of a customer. It
also detects what a shopper looks at.
The sales staff of the department
store could use the software to find out,
for example, how long a woman spends
in the shoe department and where she
goes after that.
People who care about the protection
of personal data will certainly cry foul,
but the
scientists
working on
the software
are prepared
to assure them
that
customers
will remain
anonymous.
“The
software
would, for
example, let
the store staff
know that
customer
number 300
bought shoes
and then
chocolate,”
said Rainer
Stiefelhagen,
one of the researchers working on the
project.
Airports could also use the image-
and video-analysis of the software in
access control and, thereby, improve
security.
Stiefelhagen is among a group of
researchers at the Institute for
Anthropomatics at the University of
Karlsruhe who are working in the area
of artificial intelligence and the learning
capacity of machines. He and eight
colleagues are developing the facial-
recognition software that recognises,
finds and sorts faces.
The software works using a simple
camera focused on a face’s forehead,
nose, eyes and chin. The image is
compared with a database and searches
for the one with the same
characteristics.
It then shows the result on a screen.
The software recognises not only the
face, but also shows where the person is
looking.
The demo computer at the institute
recognises all its employees – showing
not only the face, but also the person’s
name.
“We are working on teaching the
machine to be more natural,” said
Steifelhagen.
It should be able to determine who is
>Researchers inGermany areworkingon a facial
recognition software that couldbe usedby retailers
to track their customers’ shoppinghabits
The textingmania
TEXTAPHRENIA
, post-traumatic
text disorder, textiety and binge
texting aremaladies that await
the text-addicted, Australian
researcher Jennie Carroll said.
And you thought a sore thumb
was the only health risk for text-
crazy teenagers.
Carroll, of Melbourne’s RMIT
University, was commenting on
figures fromphone service
provider Boost Mobile that text
traffic had almost doubled in
volume since 2008.
One of Boost’s teenage
customers was averaging 444
messages a day.
Among the possible
downsides of texting, outlined by
Carroll are:
X
Textaphrenia
That’s themistaken belief that
you have heard the beep or felt
the vibration of an incoming text
message.
X
Post-traumatic text
disorder
That’s when texters walk into
things or are otherwise oblivious
towhat is around them.
X
Textiety
That’s the crisis of confidence
when time goes bywithout a text
being received.
X
Binge texting
Sending a blizzard of texts to
boost confidence.
“With textaphrenia and
textiety, there’s a feeling no one
loves me, no one’s contactedme,”
Carroll told the
Herald Sun
newspaper.
She said binge texting can
either reflect the delusion you
havemore friends than you
actually have or be a cry for help.
“You think you’ve been left
out of the loop so you send a lot
of texts andwait for the
response,” Carroll said. – dpa
speaking and who is standing in front of it.
Facial recognition is a subject many
companies are interested in. Millions are being
spent on promoting it and there is also plenty of
money going into research.
The goal is not only tomake a machine that
has facial recognition abilities, but also the
ability to register movement.
“The machine should recognise not only that
I ammoving my hand, but that I am reaching for
a particular bottle,” said Stiefelhagen. – dpa
The
software
would, for
example, let
the store
staff know
that
customer
number 300
bought
shoes and
then
chocolate.”
– Rainer Stiefelhagen
Cooker that turns
rice intobread
JAPAN’S
consumer electronics giant Sanyo has
launched the world’s first cooker that can turn
rice grains into bread – an innovation that it
hopes will be a hit across Asia.
Themachine canmill a cup of rice grains into
flour, thenmixes it with water, gluten, yeast and
other ingredients to bake a loaf of bread in four
hours, Sanyo Electric said.
Named Gopan (from the Japanese word
‘gohan’, meaning cooked rice, and Spanishword
‘pan’ for bread), Sanyo plans to start exporting
the cooker to other Asian countries next year
after its Japanese launch in October.
“We are eagerly working to export this to
other Asian countries, mainly China and South-
east Asia, which share the culture of growing
rice,” said company spokesman Liu Ying-ying.
Gopan would retail between ¥50,000
(RM1,863) and ¥60,000 (RM2,234).
Wheat-free bread is good for people allergic
to the grain, Sanyo said, noting that Gopan can
also operate without using gluten, which is
taken from wheat and helps dough to rise.
Sanyo argued that the cooker would increase
rice consumption in Japan and change people’s
eating habits, thus helping to increase the
country’s low food self-sufficiency ratio.
Japan, the world’s second-largest economy,
now produces only 40% of its food and imports
almost all its wheat, corn and soy beans. It grows
enough rice for domestic consumption, thanks
to heavy trade protection, but annual
consumption of the staple per person has halved
since the 1960s as people’s diets have
diversified.
The market for home-use bread-making
machines, has boomed in Japan in recent years,
according to industry data. – AFP-Relaxnews
Hey, I
know
your face