Face-recognition

Face-recognition software recently began at Australia airports. Immigration and customs officials can now verify the identity of a passenger using face-recognition technology linked to a microchip on their newly launched ePassports. If the person on the passport doesn't match the face, the person would be denied entry onto the plane. This reminds me of the Tom Cruise movie "Minority Report," where he has to take out his eyeballs in order to get through security because eye scanners detect that he's a wanted person. I remember at the time thinking that was a really strange concept, but this technology isn't far off from the technology in the movie. As I think back on the movie, I seem to remember a scene where Cruise is walking through a shopping mall and all the stores' scanners are picking up his eyeballs and offering him products based on what he bought in the past. I can see this type of thing happening in the future as companies become more and more determined to keep their customers loyal. I don't know how profitable it would be to install these systems everywhere, but who knows, maybe someday.

http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-11390_3-6189595.html

Better than TV-Links

With new mini HDTV receivers, you can plug into your favorite shows from anywhere using your laptop. Plextor's version lets viewers record, pause and play back shows occurring in realtime in hi-definition, like TiVo. I think this is more evidence that TVs will soon be pushed out by computers. All people will need in the future is a really great computing system and maybe a large screen that hooks up to it, if they're into the whole big-screen TV thing. In the small picture, this technology may just seem like a good way to catch all your favorite shows when you're away from a television set. But this could also do wonders for newspeople who need to watch multiple newscasts in order to get an idea of what else is going on in the world. A foreign correspondent could keep track of what is going on in other areas and draw from that knowledge to know where to go, and he could do it from his laptop, without needing to look for a TV set to watch.

Cell Phone facebook?

Coca-Cola is trying to be the facebook of cell-phone interaction for kids. With its upcoming Sprite Yard, it will try to get young teens to sign up and use the interaction site to chat with each other, play games and post photos, all with the purpose of generating brand loyalty to its soda pop. The idea of a cell-phone based social interaction site is new, too. This may not change the world, but it does signal something I think is significant: that a consumer company is trying to branch out to do something completely out of its realm in order to solidify its customer base. In the past, companies like Facebook and MySpace developed their social interaction sites to get like-minded folks to link up and talk about interests. With Coke's Sprite Yard, it's all another form of advertising. How effective or popular the site will be is hard to predict, but I think it's safe to say that a soda company developing new technology in hopes of gaining more soda drinkers shows how technology truly does reign in our society.

Here is a link to a New York Times article about the site:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/technology/07sprite.html