A group of students of the University of California, San Diego, are developing what one of them already calls "the most over-designed soda machine in the world."

For the moment, the machine includes a barcode scanner, a fingerprint reader, and a web cam for facial recognition.
A coke? Place your beautiful head on the distributor so it can recognize you, check that you created an account. Take your drink and goodbye. No need of money or any card.

The project is called SodaVision and is still under development. Professor Stefan Savage tells: "The biggest problem was to write the purchase request for a 'biometric soda machine'. At the beginning, one looked at me oddly”. You astonish me.

The computer science department has had for 20 years a snack cooperative called "Chez Bob". With 50 cents, you could come and buy a drink. 10 years ago, somebody had the idea to create an account: it became necessary to log Chez Bob in order to buy a drink and then your account was debited. Since better had to be done, Savage launched the idea as an academic project.

The students conceived the interface, bought the material, wrote the software, even the facial recognition, which turns on Linux on a Celeron 2GHz, a processor which does not heat too much the Cokes.

Currently, the facial recognition is in the course of improvement, it reaches an accuracy of 80%, the goal being 95%. Fingerprints are here to help, and candy bars or other snack items are scanned with the barcode reader to debite the exact price.


Source: ContactlessNews, Monday.