Most of us hardly notice the surveillance cameras watching over the grocery store or the bank. But lately those lenses have been looking for far more than shoplifters. Engineers at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA, report that a number of large retailers have implemented surveillance systems that record and interpret customer movements, using software from Almaden's BlueEyes research project. BlueEyes is developing ways for computers to anticipate users'wants by gathering video data on eye movement and facial expression. Your gaze might rest on a Web site heading, for example, and that would prompt your computer to find similar links and to call them up in a new window. But the first practical use for the research turns out to be snooping on shoppers.
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