Finisher's Corner : The Social Implications of Photo Kiosks

From Facebook to Instant Albums, Prepaid Cards and Facial Recognition

February 2, 2012 By Kim Brady

multipage

This year’s trend for photo kiosks is best described as multitasking. Several companies have expanded their photo printing services—from pocketsize photo albums “ready in five minutes” to high-tech online storage options. Access to social networks will give consumers a larger image pool from which to create their books, cards and mugs, while prepaid gift cards and bill-payment services will create more incentives for customers to visit your store. Here’s a brief glimpse of what you’ll see this year in new photo kiosk features and products.

Fujifilm North America Corporation unveiled new upgrades to its Multi-Service Kiosk, officially announced at PMA 2010. The Multi-Service Kiosk combines photo printing and prepaid service solutions that enable customers to order prints, add minutes to their cell phones, order prepaid gift cards and pay a variety of national and international bills from a single kiosk terminal. Fujifilm’s next-generation kiosk, announced at the 2012 CES, will include several new upgrades and enhancements, including the ability to print directly from iOS devices; pull images from popular online sources like Facebook, Flickr and Picasa; employ new photo-editing tools; and take advantage of new image enhancements and
 
A free-form composer also allows users to create their own custom products from a full suite of Fujifilm imaging products, including photo books, calendars, collages and more. A flexible software platform gives retailers the ability to download the latest versions of software and instantly access new products, while “on-demand” prepaid card printing provides a wider variety of cards—thus eliminating the need for inventory. Customers can order the cards they want, when they want them. Additional details will shortly be made available. fujifilmusa.com

HP is expanding its photo publishing capabilities to reach beyond the kiosk onto the Internet—allowing consumers to do more with their images and enabling retailers to capitalize on the growing retail publishing market. Customers at 2,600 Walmart stores and all Meijer stores throughout the U.S. can now order creative photo merchandise, in-store or online, for same-day pickup. Using HP in-store kiosks, Walmart customers can access their photos from HP’s online service, Snapfish.com, as well as Walmart.com and, soon, Facebook accounts.

Snapfish customers will find it simpler to access their favorite photos due to a new online photo organizer that uses sophisticated algorithms to detect and identify people’s faces. Unlike other facial recognition applications that only recognize adult faces, the Snapfish software is capable of detecting babies’ faces and tracking changes as they grow. As the children grow older, the software recognizes and groups their faces together. Once the user opts into the facial recognition feature and tags certain people, the algorithm recognizes the person in subsequent photos and assigns the appropriate name tag. A group of images is then created for each tagged person.

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