Facial recognition technology may not yet be able to swiftly (or for that matter, reliably regardless of speed) identify a particular person, but it's already able to do a credible job with lesser-complexity tasks, such as discerning an individual's gender, ethnicity or general age group. To the latter point, the above-pictured vending machine was co-developed by Kraft and Intel (the latter the original creators of OpenCV, I might add), and is intended for the former's adult-tailored Jell-O Temptations pudding:
Kraft apparently takes its target demographic very seriously (or perhaps just knows how much kids like free pudding), because if a particular vending machine user's eyes or ears are too close together (signifying youth), the equipment will refuse to serve up a gratis sample of the tasty 'mature' treat. The hardware apparently also discerns and logs the gender of each user. For more, check out the coverage at Engadget, MAKE Magazine, and Slashdot.
*Fans of the TV series Seinfeld will likely already recognize the inspiration for this particular writeup's title.
