DOES Nicole Kidman smoke?
We ask in the spirit of scientific endeavor on hearing news of a cigarette-vending machine that can identify underage customers just by looking at them.
As the Guardian reports, these machines are equipped with a digital camera that can compare users’ facial characteristics with a database of more than 100,000 people.
They can duly spot “sagging skin, wrinkles around the eyes and other signs of maturity”.
Anorak has presented the machine with pictures of Lulu (accepted), Michael Jackson (nose – pass; chin – fail; hair – fail) and Jimmy Krankie (fail).
“With face recognition, as long as you are an adult and have some change, you’ll be able to buy cigarettes as before,” Hajime Yamamoto, says a spokesman Fujitaka, the company behind the machine.
Before long the machine will be installed in every cosmetic surgery, the pre-op patients being offered as many cigarettes as they like, perhaps with the message “At your age, why worry?”, and post-ops being denied a smoke and reprimanded with a “Tsk!” and an automated text message to your parents…
Posted: 14th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Strange But True Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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