Radiolab. Lasers and Lights James Powderly. Unilever’s Smile-Activated Ice Cream Machine. Unilever revealed an ice cream vending machine to the global advertising community yesterday at Cannes.
Branded “Share Happy”, it’s already been billed as the world’s first smile-activated vending machine, and as “an ice cream truck for the digital age”. Ultimately, the vending machine offers a unique brand experience as part of Unilever’s new ice cream mission to encourage people everywhere to share life’s small moments of happiness. How it works: an “attractor screen” uses augmented reality to compel passer-by’s towards the machine. The person is then prompted to smile, with the ‘smile-o-meter’ measuring his or her grin; facial recognition technology will gauge the individual’s age, gender and emotion. Giant Model in Spy Tech-Powered Billboard Plucks, Chucks Times S. It's a tall feat for an advertiser to stand out in Times Square, which is swathed in giant plasma-screen billboards.
But today, a taste of what billboards might become is being unveiled--and the billboard reaches out and grabs the crowd, thanks to technology borrowed from high-tech spy cameras. Designed by interactive agency Space150 for Forever 21, the billboard features a model walking in front of an image of the crowd below. And then it gets interesting: The model occasionally leans over, and appears to pluck someone out of the crowd.