Lots of Americans think that the government is spying on them, but in the dystopian future, it’s probably just as likely to be a McDonald’s that’s keeping track of your every move. Multiple fast food chains are reportedly trialling license plate recognition systems for their drive-thrus. It looks like the main aim is to either speed up service, or juice more money out of customers: If a camera at, say, a Starbucks recognizes a repeat customer, it might show a custom menu centering around that person’s tastes, or it might be able to store that person’s payment details. It’s not yet known which companies are planning to use the technology, but Starbucks already uses it in South Korea, and McDonald’s recently purchased an AI startup, so, they’re into that kind of thing.
Read the full article at MSN.