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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the squeezably-soft dept.

The New York Times published an article about toilet paper theft and the use of technology to prevent it:

The toilet paper thieves of the Temple of Heaven Park were an elusive bunch.

They looked like most park visitors, practicing tai chi, dancing in the courtyards and stopping to take in the scent of ancient cypress and juniper trees. But hidden in their oversize shopping bags and backpacks was a secret: sheet upon sheet of crumpled toilet paper, plucked surreptitiously from public restrooms.

Now the authorities in Beijing are fighting back, going so far as to install high-tech toilet paper dispensers equipped with facial recognition software in several restrooms.

Before entering restrooms in the park, visitors must now stare into a computer mounted on the wall for three seconds before a machine dispenses a sheet of toilet paper, precisely two feet in length. If visitors require more, they are out of luck. The machine will not dispense a second roll to the same person for nine minutes.

This seems to be too funny to be real, but the article has an animated GIF that demonstrates this device's operation.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by vux984 on Tuesday March 21 2017, @05:50AM (3 children)

    by vux984 (5045) on Tuesday March 21 2017, @05:50AM (#481974)

    I think savvy western tourists travelling in asia generally just carry a roll of TP with them... then they aren't screwed when they're at a toilet limits you to x squares, or that sells it by by the square, or is simply lacking completely.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 21 2017, @07:46AM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday March 21 2017, @07:46AM (#481998) Journal

    Well, now you better also carry the sales slip with you, to prove that is is indeed your own paper. ;-)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday March 21 2017, @04:05PM

      by quacking duck (1395) on Tuesday March 21 2017, @04:05PM (#482217)

      I'm sure any roll you personally bought and carry yourself, would be far better quality than what they have in the facilities themselves.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @09:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @09:36PM (#482413)

    Until reading this story I never heard of a public WC in China that had toilet paper.