A new software called "Cara" gives anything with a camera the power to see faces, ages, gender, and more!

The company reports:

   "It wasn’t long, however, before requests started pouring in from other industries eager to use the technology:

In a car, one request proposed, real-time facial detection could monitor a driver’s attention, alerting him if he falls asleep.

In a fast-food restaurant, it could track how many people are standing in line.

In a house, it could help control the temperature based on who is home.

In a bar, it could keep tabs on the gender ratio (though startup SceneTap already does so using a similar technology).

It could even make a toy smile back."

How nice.

   "Most who have signed up so far are working on solutions for advertising, retail analytics, and enterprise systems, but the possibilities extend as far as developers take them. The Internet of Things has sensors for moisture, motion, temperature, humidity, light, pressure, and other qualities. Cara gives it something that could potentially be more interesting: a sense of who is in the room.

“It can be that my living room is telling my kitchen that I’m coming,” Sosa says."

How this makes my life better I don't know.  Certainly my living room ought not to be telling anyone or anything that I'm coming.  No one needs a giant mind floating out there deciding if a toy should smile back, let alone the potential for abuse should the government hook in to this.

How would you like your front door to remind you to pay your parking tickets if you want it to let you in your house?  Or your fridge to refuse to let you in for that leftover pizza if your body mass index is over government standards?  No doubt your appliances would know to smile back at you while lecturing you on what you should or shouldn't be doing.  

Sounds purely Orwellian to me.