Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Facial Recognition is Coming to Your Local Bar

Future iterations of the A.I Bar Service will alert the bar staffer(s) about who has been ‘over served’. The patron’s picture will appear with the caption; ‘shit-faced…cut ‘im off!’ The option will be called ‘drink-counter, lip reader’.

The service will both count the drinks served to a patron and ‘read’ slurred speech during reorders. Patrons entering the bar wearing a funny hat, so designated on the screen, will be on a shorter number of drinks leash.

Facial Recognition is Coming to Your Local Bar
Anna Wells Aug 13, 2019

https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/facial-recognition-is-coming-to-your-local-bar/?utm_content=featuredvideo&linktype=title&channel=email&campaign_type=thomas_industry_update&campaign_name=tiu190813&utm_campaign=tiu190813&utm_medium=email&utm_source=thomas_industry_update&tinid=221662991

Facial recognition is definitely not everyone’s favorite manifestation of technology advancement, but it’s ostensibly here to help. I mean, for every dozen or so privacy-crushing applications comes one that’s at least a little less scary…
Like this one from the DataSparQ, a data science company out of the UK, that’s looking for ways to improve the experience of ordering a drink from a bar both for patrons and bartenders.

Many people understand the frustration that comes with waiting to order at a crowded bar and being wedged out of the queue by another person who just happens to catch the bartender’s eye first. But it’s not the bartender’s fault, usually, considering there is no real line, just a mob of people with cash in their hands, leaning in.

DataSparQ’s new product – A. I. Bar Service – intends to take the guesswork out of the process and also improve efficiency. The product works by scanning faces as they approach the bar and assigning them a number indicating their place in line. Bar staffers can see the next patron and even be alerted as to whether their ID has already been checked.

Further in-process tweaks could mean a future A. I. Bar Service where a customer’s drink order can be saved within a database, giving patrons the opportunity to, say, re-order their last round from the queue so it’s waiting when they reach the front.

And according to company spokesperson John Wylie, there is an additional benefit. Between uncertain wait times and “queue jumpers” these variables are “adversely affecting consumer behavior in bars and pubs.”

Fewer uncertainties, then, could mean fewer angry confrontations – maybe even fewer physical fights? Maybe so, considering each customer can see their own place in line, displayed on a screen as they wait, essentially mistake-proofing the process. Because we can always rely on adults to behave like children in circumstances in which they are required to wait.