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Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students (arstechnica.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

96 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Facial-recognition data is typically used to prompt more vending machine sales.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

TIL about windows kiosk mode!

I can understand it from the perspective of the developers who need to implement all this crazy tracking/advertising/graphics functionality, but imo a vending machine should only do three things:

Let me see what is available (preferably using glass)
Accept payment
Give me what I paid for

Vending machines have done this for decades without requiring an operating system. Keep it simple!

[–] herrvogel 3 points 9 months ago

Simple in what way?

You could make logistics simpler by giving these things networking capacity so you can remotely track their stock and cash levels.

If your software needs to run on multiple different device configurations, you can simplify development and deployment by letting the OS handle a lot of the low level stuff.

In other words, a simpler machine is not necessarily going to be simpler to operate for the company.