Intelligent carpet can autodiscriminate Weight and gait analysisBy Nick Booth: Tuesday 25 July 2006, 13:01 A NEW FORM OF automated prejudice is set to make business decision-making far more efficient. The intelligent carpet, invented in Japan, can tell bosses the age, sex and weight of the person walking across it. Experts predict that in business recruitment, especially in the City of London (where these things matter), the process of snap decision-making could be streamlined to achieve faster judgements. A research team at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan developed the carpet. The team hopes to improve on its prototype so it can be used in such places as shops to analyse shopping patterns or entertainment venues to provide audience data. Recruitment consultants may also lay the carpet in their waiting rooms to hlep them assess prospective applicants, we imagine. Analysis of the data collected can determine foot size, stride, walking speed, weight and centre of gravity of those ambling innocently along. The prototype carpet can distinguish between people in their 20s and 60s with nearly 100 per cent accuracy, acoring to a story on Nikkei.net. The carpet can determine a walker's gender with 70-80 per cent accuracy, the inventors claim, since males and females have different centres of gravity.There are still some flaws in the system, however. Scientists admit the carpet is currently unable to judge which school a peson went to. Nor is it too good at determining skin or hair colour. But no-doubt such criteria will be plumbed into the system over time. µ
lolmarry that with an intelligent surveilance camera and you won't need a receptionist.
