Big brother could soon be getting an eyeful if women begin popularizing the latest innovation in online shopping.
In an effort to eliminate the cost of needing “to order multiple sizes of the same garment and send back ill-fitting clothes,” scientists from Surrey University and design experts from the London College of Fashion have developed a program that will be able to take measurements of a woman’s figure from photographs taken from webcams or uploaded from smart phones, reports the London Telegraph.
“Using the person’s height as a starting point, the software will be able to build up a 3D image and estimate their size at various different points on the body, based on their overall proportions,” the Telegraph writes.
A researcher at the London College of Fashion told the Telegraph the technology will be extremely useful because it’s currently “common” for women to order “two or three different sizes of the same item of clothing at the same time.”
This latest effort to have us voluntarily insert Big Brother’s perverted eye into our lives by making it sound trendy follows a disturbing marketing inclination that is increasingly utilizing biometrics to analyze, store and sell consumer habit trends.
Earlier this year, we reported on the development of an invasive face scan deal-linking technology being produced by Nashville company Redpepper Laboratories.
“The process starts when a “Facedeals” camera, mounted at a venue’s front door, scans and matches your face’s likeness to your Facebook profile, generating customized deals for your area according to your ‘likes,’” we wrote of the Minority Report-esque technology back in August.
Following lock step is the emerging field of biometric marketing and field research targeting unsuspecting consumers and producing customized ads according to gender and age.
Last year, we learned the company Shoppertrak was using cameras in places like Victoria’s Secret and Autozone, not to prevent thefts or for surveillance, but to watch and analyze consumer traffic spending habits. Shoppertrak’s website says it is “Using people counting to uncover the total sales opportunity while enhancing marketing and operational effectiveness.”
“The company Shoppertrack markets ceiling mounted cameras designed to count customers as they come and go. They then analyze the data in a bid to boost sales. It’s one of the most basic surveillance systems available. It’s in use worldwide,” reported a news piece produced on the covert shopper spy apparatus.
Several bus terminals in the U.K. have also been outfitted with high-definition face-scanning cameras that deliver customized ads based on gender-guessing according to “specific facial attributes of the jawline, cheekbones, nose and eyes.”
Earlier this week, we reported on the integration of shopping surveillance and law enforcement already rolled out in various airports and fashion stores across the world.
“The EyeSee mannequin, developed by Italian firm Almax, relies on technology used to identify criminals in airports that utilizes facial recognition software to identify the race, age and gender of the shopper and feeds that information back to a centralized database. The camera is embedded in the eye of the mannequin,” Paul Watson wrote.
As several of the world’s nations plummet into economic insolvency, consumerist tendencies continue unabated, induced and championed via television and social media brainwashing.
How far will Big Brother’s prying eye go in response to the public’s desire for material possessions?
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