The large scale video screen on Shibuya's QFRONT building, overlooking the scramble crossing, has undergone a few enhancements. The new "Q's Eye" screen can calculate the numbers of passers by and classify them by age and sex in realtime. It is part of an experiment by the screen's developers AVIX to come up with a "viewer ratings" system for signboards and is believed to be the first such trial anywhere in the world. Of course, to do this, the signboard now includes two video cameras. This six second video clip shows what they can see:
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So it looks like we face a future where vending machines and advertising hoardings will be tracking our movements. Earlier this year, NEC unveiled a similar technology which aims to assess the demographic composition of passers-by in order to target them with particular adverts. That sounded familiar:
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