(empo-plaaybizz) If you can sell facial recognition as fun, you can sell anything

[DISCLAIMER: I WAS PREVIOUSLY EMPLOYED BY MOTOROLA, AND IN THAT CAPACITY WAS EXPOSED TO TECHNOLOGIES THAT WERE SUBSEQUENTLY ACQUIRED BY ONE OF THE COMPANIES MENTIONED HERE.]

Gee, this sounds fun.

Back in mid-December, Facebook's Justin Mitchell wrote a blog post entitled Making Photo Tagging Easier. First, Mitchell presents the problem:

While tags are an essential tool for sharing important moments, many of you have said tagging photos can be a chore. (Like that time you had to tag your cousin and her fiancé over and over and over again in 64 different pictures of their engagement party, and then go back and tag the guests.)

So Facebook is rolling out tag suggestions to make your life easier. How do they do it?

Because photos are such an important part of Facebook, we want to be sure you know exactly how tag suggestions work: When you or a friend upload new photos, we use face recognition software—similar to that found in many photo editing tools—to match your new photos to other photos you're tagged in. We group similar photos together and, whenever possible, suggest the name of the friend in the photos.

Now Facebook isn't the first online service to incorporate facial recognition. Google acquired such technology in 2006, and incorporated it into its products by 2007, although a full rollout may not be performed due to privacy concerns.

Yet casual users are getting more and more accustomed to facial recognition, which can lead to wider acceptance of the use of the technology. Which is a good thing, because it's not just the casual photo taggers that use facial recognition - governments are using software from various companies, including my own, for passport checking and other applications.

Assuming for the moment that casual use of a technology can increase the acceptance of its use in law enforcement, perhaps this same practice can be applied to other technologies.

Such as the body scanners used by the TSA.

How come the trendiest clubs haven't bought some of these body scanners to install inside their party zones?

Imagine - it's one o'clock in the morning, the star deejay is in the middle of her set, the lights are flashing...and a guy in a police uniform rushes out to the applause of everyone.

"OK," yells the pseudo-cop, "who wants to get scanned?"

After some pushing and shoving around, a few young women and a few young men move toward the pseudo-cop, and The Machine is unveiled, along with a large monitor. One by one, the participants go through the body scanner, and the crowd cheers or jeers depending upon the results of the scan. Winners are selected, and participants will get the option to purchase photos of their scans.

Now I'm sure that some people would charge that this would violate pornography laws, but the nightclub owner will claim that these are just standard Federal Government practices.

And if these tactics help to sell body scanners, look for the nightclubs to follow that up with Waterboarding night.