NEC Showcases Biometric Retail Shopper Analytics Solution

“The effort indicates a deepening relationship between NEC and Microsoft in retail, with the latter’s Kinect motion-sensing system having been leveraged for the NEC Engage digital signage system.”

NEC is showcasing a new retail solution that takes advantage of its facial biometric technology at this year’s IoT Solutions World Congress.

The solution was built using the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite, and leverages the same facial recognition technology used in NEC’s smart signage platform, which enables store signage to capture demographic information about customers such as age and gender. NEC has also teamed up with Brierley+Partners for the solution, using the Customer Relationship Management firm’s data analytics software to glean further insights about customers.

The result is a cloud-based application, hosted on Microsoft’s Azure servers, that offers retailers a means of collecting rich data on the shoppers in their stores.

The effort indicates a deepening relationship between NEC and Microsoft in retail, with the latter’s Kinect motion-sensing system having been leveraged for the NEC Engage digital signage system. It’s also a sign of the growing pervasiveness of biometric technology, which is already finding its way into retail settings thanks in part to its utility in identifying shoplifters.

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October 27, 2016 – by Alex Perala