this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
492 points (96.2% liked)
Mildly Interesting
17436 readers
44 users here now
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You have to do facial recognition with a cheap webcam. Apparently using AI is still so cost-prohibitive, they already had to pull one of these machines. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2024/07/10/chips-chocolate-and-ammunition-at-a-vending-machine-near-some/
That isn't what that article says. It talks about American Rounds and other companies that use vending machine to sell restricted products. A different company Master Ammo found using AI for facial verification to be costly when they looked at it "years ago". The article doesn't specify how long ago that was. If it was 12 years ago, which is the age of Master Ammo, I would find that plausible.
The machine for American Rounds was pulled because of "disappointing sales". Retail space ain't free, and I bet it has slim margins too.
In any case, the whole endeavor may not be viable in the long run. They either have to get costs low enough to compete with brick and mortar stores and the Big Box stores, or they have to go where none exist while finding enough locations to recoup development costs. The devil's in the details and unfortunately all the reporting on this has been quick news stories.
Facial recognition shouldn't be costly, you can do it on Raspberry Pi with a Coral.
I like citations and context, thank you.