545
A college is removing its vending machines after a student discovered they were using facial recognition technology
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
545 points (98.9% liked)
Technology
60086 readers
2832 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm surprised nobody has discussed the most obvious "marketing" use of this data: Differential pricing.
Someone walks up to the machine. Based on the image seen by the machine, they determine which product is most likely to sell, and bump that product's price up by a quarter or 50 cents.
If they're not doing it now, they're preparing to do it in the near future.
EDIT If you watch Invenda's marketing videos, they talk about how the 'optical sensor' provides a 'bespoke purchasing experience.'
Sounds exactly like dynamic pricing is their model.
Alternatively, I have seen the vending machines with giant screens on the front that play ads for different drinks. Perhaps they will use it for advertising decisions as well.
It's not either or. It can easily be both and selling any data they can as well.
That's my assumption as well. Man in a suit checks out the machine? Bump it up. Couple checks out? Bump it up.