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Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students (arstechnica.com)

submitted 7 months ago by stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to c/technology@lemmy.world

98 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Facial-recognition data is typically used to prompt more vending machine sales.

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[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

As if Linux based vending machines aint a full fledged OS even with a minimal installation?
This aint embedded.

[–] msage@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No, Linux is a kernel.

OS is a specific distribution, so like a Debian is the full fledged OS.

So just write your inventory inside the file, and bind the vending machine keys to it, and ignore 99% of the OS. The coin slot I would expect runs its own validations.

[–] uis@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Linux Standard Base is full fledges OS then

[–] grandma@sh.itjust.works 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes of course Linux is a fully fledged OS, my point was a vending machine should not need any OS, my bad if I didnt make that clear

[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Why not? A full windows environment (though not really, because these things run what's called the kiosk mode) can run on cheap SBCs and gives you a ton of hardware and software flexibility, and is also pretty convenient. It's very commonly used for very good reasons.

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 1 points 7 months ago

Let's stop kidding ourselves, the "good reason" is the cto's yearly Microsoft financed holidays and/or too much legacy code to restart from scratch. But from a purely technical aspect, there's no reason to touch windows

[–] grandma@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

TIL about windows kiosk mode!

I can understand it from the perspective of the developers who need to implement all this crazy tracking/advertising/graphics functionality, but imo a vending machine should only do three things:

Let me see what is available (preferably using glass)
Accept payment
Give me what I paid for

Vending machines have done this for decades without requiring an operating system. Keep it simple!

[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Simple in what way?

You could make logistics simpler by giving these things networking capacity so you can remotely track their stock and cash levels.

If your software needs to run on multiple different device configurations, you can simplify development and deployment by letting the OS handle a lot of the low level stuff.

In other words, a simpler machine is not necessarily going to be simpler to operate for the company.