A ‘Smile Scan’ that rates your smile
I don’t know about you but I always respond better to someone who is smiling, be it family, friend, or stranger.
But can we expect everyone to smile all the time. Is that even possible? And would we really want to be constantly surrounded by smiling faces?
One Japanese company, Omron, thinks so and has created the Smile Scan to help people rate their smiles.
Consisting of a video camera and sensor unit that connected to computer software, the Smile Scan scans a person’s face, rendering a 3D image and evaluates critical spots such as mouth and eyes to see if the person is smiling hard enough. The smile is then rated from 0 to 100.
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Currently available only in Japan, the Smile Scan is being used by companies such as Japan’s Keihin Electric Express Railway Co. This Tokyo-based company is using the ‘smile meter’ to grade and evaluate the grins of it’s station staff as they report to work each day. Employees are then able to carry around a printed image of their best smile so that they can replicate it throughout the day as they meet and greet customers at train stations.
Can you image the employees at the Grand Central Station in NYC or at LAX airport submitting to a similar process?
Somehow I don’t think they’d be smiling!
