Skip to main content

New iSample vending machine knows exactly who’s using it

Forget smart phones, how about a smart vending machine? Food giant Kraft recently teamed up with Intel to produce the iSample vending machine, capable of studying what kinds of people are buying their goods.

The technology comprises an optical sensor fitted at the top of the machine that sends information about the shopper’s face to a computer running software capable of working out the person’s gender and age.

The iSample machine being trialed by the two companies does as its name suggests – offers samples of products. In this case, it’s a jelly-based dessert called Temptations, marketed with the strapline “the first Jell-O that’s just for adults.” That’s right, an adult-only jelly-based dessert.

Children that attempt to obtain a dessert from the machine will be out of luck. The on-board computer will detect that a non-adult is pressing the buttons and politeley refuse to hand over a sample. This is all going to end in tears, isn’t it.

The computer will ‘read’ the adult’s face and place them in one of four age groups before serving the appropriate dessert, though how Kraft have matched age with particular types of jelly dessert isn’t entirely clear.

Kraft’s Ed Kaczmarek told the BBC that the company is currently testing out two iSample machines – at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and South Street Seaport in New York. If it’s a success the company hopes to introduce more.

Kaczmarek added, “We can do so much more with the iSample program. Tied to specific marketing campaigns, we can customize the experience in order to reach out to consumers more efficiently.”

The smart vending machine could also be used to provide data about which consumers are buying which products, and could prevent the sale of age-restricted goods to children.

Intel’s Michelle Tinsley suggested other ways in which the technology could be used. “We can measure dwell time. So we can tell in an advertising or signage use of this technology, did they look at the screen for a fraction of a second or for 20 seconds….it’s helpful for the advertiser to know of the people who looked at the sign or the ad, how many saw the full advertisement.”

It all sounds promising, but the kids will only be happy if they can get their hands on that jelly-based dessert.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more