Shops and retailers are taking over where street cameras left off, watching shoppers' every move.
According to a 2015 survey of 150 retail executives from IT services firm Computer Services Corporation, a quarter of all British shops and 59% of fashion retailers use facial recognition software. Such technology is vital as offline stores attempt to keep up with online retailers, said Duncan Mann, chief operating officer at retail analysis firm Hoxton Analytics. "Online retailers gather all kinds of information about shoppers and physical stores also want to understand how people behave in a shop," he said. But, he admits: "A lot of these technologies are kind of invasive."
Hoxton has come up with a novel way of measuring footfall - literally by filming people's shoes. Sherlock Holmes-like, its system can deduce a remarkable amount of information such as age, gender and social class of shoppers from their footwear. "We have cameras at about 50cm off the ground and it points down so it is less invasive than facial recognition," he explains. It is surprisingly accurate. It spots the correct gender 80% of the time, better than some facial recognition technologies, according to Mr Mann.
Looks like this tech will arrive just after Amazon has put them all out of business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @06:19AM
...in 3...2...1...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @06:29AM (1 child)
1. levitation ray
2. amnesia door
3. anal probe
4. probe communicates with mothership
5. mothership communicates with materializer
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @07:08AM
And then there was me, thinking it was because I sit down for too long.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Sunday March 26 2017, @06:48AM (5 children)
I just bought a new BLU SmartPhone. I transferred the calling plan I had from a much simpler AT&T Go phone. This is the plan where one gets three months worth of service ( and 12 day's worth of calls ) for $25. Voice/texts only. No data.
Sure enough, I try to access the internet on the phone and get a message from AT&T reminding me I have no internet service with them, please contact us to add data to your plan... yada-yada-yada.
Now, here's the interesting part. I was looking at the data usage on my phone, expecting zero, as I have no data plan. About 15 days into the month, I am over 40 Megabytes. This is running in the background. Mostly Google, albeit quite a few other apps are using the connection as well. Even the NextRadio app, which came pre-installed, has chewed up 131 KB. Without ever launching the app!
This is all from things in the background. Behind my back. I have not initiated any of this.
I get the idea that these phones are leaking data like a sieve - every time they see the internet available, they phone home with their bounty. Even if you do not have internet access paid for - apparently people have agreements with AT&T to go ahead and let their apps and backdoors connect - even to those who decline "data service".
It was a let-down for me to discover the "FM Radio" my phone shipped with required internet access to run. I was of the idea that during an emergency, internet access may be spotty at best, but a standalone radio was probably a wise move for being informed after, say, an earthquake. All the phone's processing power, and even capability, is rendered useless by a few lines of code requiring permission from the internet to run. Another example of the influence of trying to monetize everything. I hold in my hand a device having several times the computational power of the mainframe system I trained on at University, yet it doesn't have the capability of a 1960's era transistor radio to pick up a radio station...
Seems such a shame that our technology and creativity is being so overrun with certain people needing to control everything.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 26 2017, @07:32AM (1 child)
Are you sure those 40 megabytes don't just consist of the data the apps tried to send, together with the response from the network with a message that internet access is not available (which the apps won't be able to interpret, of course)? I mean that you got a message about adding data to your plan shows that you did get data transfer, it's just that the connection didn't lead to the internet, but to some AT&T server.
So yes, all those applications constantly try to phone home. But your information doesn't imply that they succeed.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Sunday March 26 2017, @08:06AM
Interesting.
I was looking at the SIM card setups in the phone. Its a GSM phone and has two SIM slots. I have the AT&T sim in one and a TING (T-Mobile network) SIM card in the other.
My own observations - in my location - is that AT&T is way more robust, and that T-Mobile service ( as resold by TING ) is way cheaper, but often not available. So I swap between the two according as to where I am, knowing I will pay through the nose for AT&T - but they are often the only game in town. So I pay their $25 fee every three months for backup in case I am out of T-Mobile coverage area.
The way this phone is set up, it tracks the amount of data usage as overview, AT&T and TING. On the SIM card setup, I have all data routed through AT&T, and Data Usage tab shows over 40MB of data went through AT&T, and 1.8MB went through TING.
I can account for that 1.8MB, as I did switch over to TING data last week when I had to call AAA to help me with my van ( I locked the keys in it... ), and when I called AAA, they gave me a website to go to make things go smoother. I did, via TING, and apparently they not only got my location but also gave me where the rescue truck was. Pretty clever if I say so myself.
I do note the phone always seems to know where it is ( Google Maps - Blue Dot ).
I thought it was the onboard GPS chipset this phone is alleged to have, but am told this data is calculated by the carrier, as they have multiple towers receiving my phone, and they triangulate and use beamforming techniques to determine precisely where my phone is. ( (They know exactly where their towers are, and also know that the speed of light is constant, so by looking at my signal itself - and its time of arrival to the nanosecond of when it hits each of their towers, they know pretty darn close to where I am.)
So, to get back to your suggestion, I do not really know whether that 40Megabytes its reporting is failed communication attempts or if it was actual payload delivered.
I do know that both my phone and TING report that I used 1.8MB of TING data - and that was over about 20 minutes of updating maps on my end showing me where the rescue truck was, and I am quite sure my location was sent the same way to the truck driver, as I saw the map on his display in his truck, and it looked a lot like my map, except my location was the circled dot. So I get the idea the accounting with TING was 1.8 MB of payload delivered. I would think that the accounting with AT&T would be likewise.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @07:46AM (1 child)
N900. If it works on your carrier's frequencies! They're built like bricks but they do run firefox with noscript&friends and however many tabs, and it's a physical kb. You control the apps. It's a debian fork by default or you can install whatever maemo's terminal node is right now. If you don't want the telecom radio on you can disable the hardware. If you want FM it's there, in hardware.
And for battery usage it is supreme. There's a free tool to log battery voltage and commonly important resources (ie. cpu, io, and on/off/sleep state of peripherals). Ditto a per-process resource log/viz helper to look for the culprit, when the battery voltage graph shows sharp ramps for 15sec every 5min, drawing meaningful charge overnight. Oh, I could go on...
Socially, just install an emulator and call it a game system if anyone asks. Say 'oh yeah it has a phone too I use that sometimes and the texting is pretty good for a game' and you'll look oh so avant garde with your swiss army knife game system.
I hear good things about GTA04 too, but you have to print the case for it. You could probably ask here and get a lentil to ship you that part, if you haven't access yourself. Or I guess you could practice your whittling to fine precision.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:45AM
The N900 was released in 2009, and they are hard to come by in good nick. Not to mention I doubt many people would be satisfied with a single core 1Ghz arm nowadays.
Was a complete knockout of a phone though, it could do things that even today, my latest Android cannot do (Especially loved the built in FM transmitter with RDS on the n900), but alas Nokia got taken over by Microsoft, and killed everything decent coming out of this area of research.
I am looking towards the http://neo900.org/ [neo900.org] project to reincarnate the N900, but at the moment it is still too expensive for me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @08:33AM
"No root firewall"
(Score: 2) by lx on Sunday March 26 2017, @07:02AM
How very British.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @07:28AM (1 child)
1 leave smartphone home
2 take ID with you because without smartphone you are likely to be considered a pedoterrorist thief and I wonder whether they are already scanning people that don't emit stuff in the cellphone range
3 wear oldest pair of serious shoes you have with ugliest pants, remove all polish in advance, bonus for getting some dust by walking on gravel.
4 remember to walk with small uncertain steps like an elder would
5 ???
6 PROFIT!!!
I mean, unless the shop features digital price tags, in that case above is good advice.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday March 26 2017, @07:43AM
A bean in one of your shoes will do wonders to your gait - no need to remember anything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @08:12AM
If they pay too much attention to me, they are apt to way overstock their stores with shoe polish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @09:45AM (7 children)
My friends, is why I never go out on the town. Actually, I have little interest anyway in going out. But thankfully I live in a part of the USA that isn't heavily CCTV'd. So I'm not quite as worried -- yet.
Of course they say they never collect individual data. They have to.
My dad used to talk about all the things businesses want from us these days. They want to know when we wake up, when we sleep, what time we take a shit, how much we shit, when we eat, and how many times a day we have an erection. Anything and everything to ensure they can make a little bit more money off of us. And that lovely pairing of business and government that allows them to hone their profits will allow big brother to ensure that we're all being nice people.
Remember those days when people thought those who said the TV was watching us were thought to be schizophrenic? Now I guess we wish we'd paid more attention. Here we had modern day prophets all along, and we shipped them off for treatment at the hands of our wonderful psychiatric industry.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:26AM
In a way, its kinda funny how many hoops some businesses will jump through, how many ads they will try to force onto us, only to make terrible first impressions by presentation of "businesstalk" at first contact. Squirrely businesstalk that makes their company look like a gold-digger at a social.
Things like putting a large number on the screen.. like 3 payments of $33!
And wait! There's more! Buy NOW and we will send a second one FREE! That's right! You get TWO of these marvelous things for just three easy payments of 33 dollars!
Just as my excitement begins to build over getting one, I already have a figure of $99 in mind, accurate to the penny.
But the head does not stop there. It continues yammering. "Just pay additional fee"... as if its nothing. How much? Undefined!
Now, just how many times has that head hocked up "just pay additional fee"? How many additional fees, taxes, shipping, whatever are we talking? Head won't say. It wants me to call. I'll be damned to waste my time to call somebody who has already started this relationship off trying to trick me. By this time, I am simply pissed. I maybe make a note to look them up on the internet and yelp them, but by that time, the excitement of purchase has subsided, and reason has returned. Really, now, do I really want to initiate contact with that motormouth again? Will it be truthful with me or just present me with another spiel of businesstalk?
Wasn't it Nancy Pelosi who commented on having to pass the healthcare act so as to find out what was in it?
Am I going to have to buy one to find out how much it costs? Not only that, I can see the way they are talking and flashing stuff on and off the screen, I feel I have just been invited to a shell game. Savings! Savings! Savings! Twirl the cups! Quick! Which cup has the Savings! followed by Sucker! We got your money and you ain't getting it back - we did our thing and sent you something in a box. Are you gonna sue us? We are a Business! We have money! Your money! His money! Everyone's money!
I'm afraid after my mind gets in that rut, forget doing business.
Years of preparing a product for development and marketing. 60 seconds to have a television ad-head completely having the customer believe its a scammy shell-game.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday March 26 2017, @12:58PM (5 children)
all the things businesses want from us
We are in a spying bubble.
The worlds biggest advertising and information gathering company, google, is constantly sunsetting "free" data gathering applications because they can't make a profit off the most intimate imaginable data.
The desire for data is infinite because they're in the business of selling it for a profit but margins are slim to zero because no one wants to pay for any of the, frankly useless, spy data.
I admit right now I can't figure out for sure if we're in a notification/spam bubble WRT stuff that serves no purpose other than interrupting us or a spy bubble where everyone is certain if they just spy on us harder than everyone else then they'll find a way to make money although no one has so far.
Personally I think the "lets track little old lady shoppers" is just a SWPL politically correct cover for trying to catch criminals who are mostly in demographics we're not allowed to complain about. The faces they're tracking are not little old grannies for sales purposes but in the USA they are interested in tracking young black men for anti-shoplifting purposes.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday March 26 2017, @04:59PM (4 children)
I found it interesting that looking at shoes gave 80% correct gender determination, which they claim is better than facial recognition.
I can see where the jeans an tennis shoes croud might present a problem if all you could see was feet.
Bu I had no idea that FC had so much problem with gender determination.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @05:44PM (3 children)
No shoes, No surveillance.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 26 2017, @09:39PM (2 children)
No shoes, No surveillance.
More likely to make sure they use the correct bathroom, whichever that is defined as currently.
Odd they don't do a crotch or chest pix shot to determine gender. Probably an obesity issue, all spherical objects looking similar.
It is mystifying why they desperately need to know the gender. Given the desire to push labor rates ever lower I don't have useful interactions with staff so they must be doing some kind of weird statistical analysis work, I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @11:59PM (1 child)
Only women born women get pregnant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @05:24AM
> Only women born women get pregnant.
So far!
Also, that's not what GP meant by labour rates.