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Kiosk Looks At You, Then Decides On Your Meal

This Kraft kiosk solves the common problem of deciding what is for dinner; it looks at you and decides for you.


(Kraft Intel store kiosk)

The "Meal Planning Solution," part of Intel's "Connected Store," is a sort of kiosk you might find in an upscale suburban market... 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...

If shoppers are willing to assist the effort by swiping their local market's loyalty card or their mobile phone, the kiosk can make recommendations based on past purchasing history. The kiosk syncs with Kraft's iFood Assistant, which allows shoppers to add recipes, shopping lists, etc. to their smartphones via a barcode scanner.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams tells us about the Nutri-Matic, which also makes an assessment of its user prior to dispensing foodstuffs:

He had found a Nutri-Matic machine... The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic examination of the subject's metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject's brain to see what was likely to go down well.
(Read more about Douglas Adam's Nutri-Matic)

Via FastCompany.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 1/22/2011)

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