TOKYO (Reuters) -
Cigarette vending machines in Japan may
soon start counting wrinkles, crow's feet and skin sags to see
if the customer is old enough to smoke.
The legal age for smoking in Japan is 20 and as the
country's 570,000 tobacco vending machines prepare for a July
regulation requiring them to ensure buyers are not underage, a
company has developed a system to identify age by studying
facial features.
By having the customer look into a digital camera attached
to the machine, Fujitaka Co's system will compare facial
characteristics, such as wrinkles surrounding the eyes, bone
structure and skin sags, to the facial data of over 100,000
people, Hajime Yamamoto, a company spokesman said.
Yamamoto said the system could correctly identify about 90
percent of the users, with the remaining 10 percent sent to a
"grey zone" for "minors that look older, and baby-faced
adults," where they would be asked to insert their driving
license.
No comments:
Post a Comment