Posted on 09/04/2017 9:23:00 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Back in January, Food and Wine reported that KFC China would be introducing a facial recognition system that would predict your order (it’s not as creepy as it sounds). Now it looks like the brand is enhancing that technology with additional features. According to Reuters, the system lets customers pay by face, just by approaching one of the store's newly unveiled monitors.
The new device is located at a KFC outpost in the city of Hangzhou. The facial recognition system is called Smile to Pay, and it’s being featured at a Yum Brands (the company behind KFC) so-called concept store called KPRO that is focused on healthier menu items. The menu features roasted chicken, craft beer, fresh juice, salads, and paninis. Yum China’s president explains that the store is aimed at “young, tech savvy consumers who are keen to embrace new tastes and innovations”.
The process behind Smile to Pay is actually very simple: Customers pay for their food by approaching the face-scanning kiosk and entering their phone number. If your face matches a photo in the system, the cost of the meal is debited from the banking account on file. It’s also supposed to block any cheating customers who try to scan a photograph or a video recording.
The system sounds convenient—no more digging around your purse or backpack looking for your wallet or credit card, spilling coins and cash all over the counter in the process—but it’s also one of those futuristic innovations many people recognize from science fiction might only be accepted after some trepidation.
This fried chicken from American Cut has everything from a buttery biscuit to a special spice blend that coats the chicken.
The company that created Smile to Pay claims that KFC China is the first-ever business to use face-scanning technology like this. But the move makes sense: There’s no better place to test out measures that make life more convenient than at the places where people eat. After all, we're usually there because we're hungry already and just want to get to our food as quickly and easily as possible
… it’s not as creepy as it sounds …The only way for that statement to be correct is for it to be creepier than it sounds. And frankly, it is way creepier.
Yeah... facial recognition in China? I have it on good authority that when God was making people, he was carefully making everyone look different.
He was really tired and when he started on China he said. “aw, screw it”...
In Japan Colonel Sanders is a stand-in for Santa Claus.
KFC for Christmas in Japan – a case study of diabolical marketing genius
http://diginomica.com/2016/12/23/kfc-for-christmas-in-japan-a-case-study-of-diabolical-marketing-genius/
So everyone in China doesn’t look the same??
I had a college prof who spent time in Japan. She said the reason Japanese have such unwrinkled facial skin is that they very seldom show emotion. She said the weirdest thing was riding a bullet train and looking back over her shoulder at all the faces of the riders behind her. The uniformly blank faces were unnerving.
Makes me re-think the attitude of aborigines who feared that photographs stole their soul.
Creepy
The Chinese don’t like to lose face now...and with this if they lose face they can’t even buy a bucket of chicken.
My brother came to town for a visit and we went out to eat at an oriental restaurant. Now, my boss at work was Korean and we worked for the Japanese company Konica, so I saw Japanese for time to time.
The hostess at the restaurant had flat cheeks of Koreans, but a little more rounded, as Japanese. I figured she was from somewhere between Japan and Korea, so just for the hell of it, I asked her if she was from Hong Kong. She was. My brother couldn’t believe I could tell a difference. LOL
Surveillance society writ large.
remarkable!
I don't know how things are now ,but when I was in China back in '97 it became a game to dodge the Internal Security Police with their 35mm Cameras taking your picture every time you got off a Train or Aircraft.
They went bonkers if you managed to dodge them.
Which was fun. :)
Never been there, not sure I’d want to go, but it bugs me to think that I’m being watched.
If I were being watched, I would just have to do something utterly weird just to p!ss off who ever was watching! :)
No big deal. Everybody already knows that
little Tsing Tao will always order the Poodle McNuggets
Happy (at work) Meal.
I still recall how as kids we almost always fought over the skin as it was absoultely the best part of eating it.
Now alas, it's been bought & resold 6 times now and the current owner Yum foods only cares about profits and cut back on the ingredients.
Just so you place them back in view after 10 minutes or so! :)
You’re never going to find that sock!
Sure I will! It is in the dryer! Of course!
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