Taiwanese Compay Develops Face-recognizing Vending Machine
Friday, January 14, 2011 at 8:43AM 
The face-recognition vending machine from Taipei-based Innovative DigiTech-Enabled Applications and Services Institute can, for example, offer hair-growing tonic to balding men and razors to people with beards.
A camera reads the faces of shoppers and then suggests products according to their gender and age.
"Our facial-recognition technology is more active than what has been developed in the United States and Japan, because it can actually offer shopping advice," said Tsai Chi-hung, a researcher at the institute.
It is also able to suggest beauty products for young women and health drinks for older ones, according to Tsai.
The machine can also record the choices of shoppers who do not follow its tips to learn from its "mistakes" to be able to offer better suggestions in the future, he said.
