Scanning Crowds for Demographics

Eye balling

With electronic billboards checking your credentials, processing power escalating, hi-res cameras and other sensors becoming ever cheaper, it's become possible for manufacturers to develop products that allow web-like targeting of consumers in the "real world."

Par example, a system developed by a Singapore research agency, lets advertising screens detect the genders of passers-by: it will soon be able to tell how old they are, too. IBM has been working on systems that can scan a crowd and estimate numbers and demographic types. They want to now where pedestrians and shoppers are looking and what interests them most.

The Hi-res camera vision of computers is now sophisticated and cheap enough to make it possible to spot the logos on your drinks cup or shopping bags, and serve up responsive ads, that reinforce your choices or promotes a competitor.

Now that facial recognition has become a consumer technology it is not difficult to install a series of ad screens that tracks individuals as they move through a subway system or mall, greeting them at each turn with a particular message or character. Coming to a high street near you, allegedly.