Kiosk Picks Your Food from Your Face

Manufacturing giant Kraft Foods has partnered with chip maker Intel to develop a self-service kiosk housing digital signage, which scans shoppers' faces and then (wait for it...) recommends what they should cook for dinner.

The camera, built into the new 2,400 square foot 'Kraft Meal Planning Solution', can zoom in and out on a consumer's face to gather audience metrics such as age, gender and length of attention. From this data, Kraft's kiosk can deliver tailored recipe suggestions based on the type of meal it believes shoppers are likely to want to cook.

Then, if users swipe their supermarket loyalty cards, the kiosk will also provide dining recommendations based on their previous Kraft shopping history. It will also allow shoppers to add their own recipes, using a barcode scanner.

According to Kraft, roughly 70% of Americans walk into their local markets with no idea what they're going to cook for dinner that evening. The firm's VP of Retail Experience Donald King says that the average shopper only has 10 recipes in their repertoire of meals, and that the kiosk has been developed to encourage them to expand this list.

The kiosk is currently being showcased at trade shows, but is likely to be rolled out in grocery stores later this year.

Web sites: www.kraftfoodscompany.com and www.intel.com .