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 Coaster
ChemicalResearcher
  
Registered: 05/22/06
Posts: 8,417
Loc: La La Land
Last seen: 6 hours, 8 minutes
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 Japans cigarette age is 20
#8408204 - 05/16/08 03:14 AM |
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Wrinkles could be key to buying cigarettes in Japan
Mon May 12, 5:53 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Cigarette vending machines in Japan may soon start counting wrinkles, crow's feet and skin sags to see if the customer is old enough to smoke.
The legal age for smoking in Japan is 20 and as the country's 570,000 tobacco vending machines prepare for a July regulation requiring them to ensure buyers are not underage, a company has developed a system to identify age by studying facial features.
By having the customer look into a digital camera attached to the machine, Fujitaka Co's system will compare facial characteristics, such as wrinkles surrounding the eyes, bone structure and skin sags, to the facial data of over 100,000 people, Hajime Yamamoto, a company spokesman said.
"With face recognition, so long as you've got some change and you are an adult, you can buy cigarettes like before. The problem of minors borrowing (identification) cards to purchase cigarettes could be avoided as well," Yamamoto said.
Japan's finance ministry has already given permission to an age-identifying smart card called "taspo" and a system that can read the age from driving licenses.
It has yet to approve the facial identification method due to concerns about its accuracy.
Yamamoto said the system could correctly identify about 90 percent of the users, with the remaining 10 percent sent to a "grey zone" for "minors that look older, and baby-faced adults," where they would be asked to insert their driving license.
Underage smoking has been on a decline in Japan, but a health ministry survey in 2004 showed 13 percent of boys and 4 percent of girls in the third year of high school -- those aged 17 to 18 -- smoked every day.
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Groomies
Stranger
Registered: 08/16/07
Posts: 457
Last seen: 17 minutes, 51 seconds
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i wonder if those vending machines can really tell how old they are. i can't even tell how old asian girls are. sometime they look 16 when the are like 20+
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AlCapwn
Entheo-Josh
Registered: 02/03/07
Posts: 2,736
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 1 day, 11 hours
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That's why I love Japan >:3
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Don't just eat a mushroom stem and see colors, eat the whole bag and see God one time in your life. A real God! Not some storybook bullshit God that's been fucking kicked in your head for the last 2000 years that you just accept with no logic what so ever, a real God that works for you. Everytime you deny your own logic, deny your own instincts, you deny your own God you fucking moron. - Doug Stanhope
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ComputerTekGuy
Stranger
Registered: 01/15/07
Posts: 200
Last seen: 9 hours, 28 minutes
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When i was 18 i looked 25.
I dont know if this would work for everyone, some young people that want smokes, that look old, might have an advantage to tricking to the machine.
Why is it that the Japanese smoke so much and they have less cancer than we do? Better food maybe? Tea?
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Coaster
ChemicalResearcher
Registered: 05/22/06
Posts: 8,417
Loc: La La Land
Last seen: 6 hours, 8 minutes
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cuz they eat so much fish
and fish=healthy
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wireless
Thizziswhatis
Registered: 11/06/06
Posts: 746
Last seen: 2 days, 7 hours
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Quote:
Coaster said:
cuz they eat so much fish
and fish=healthy
Not where I live. Where I live fish = high amounts of mercury. I think its in Japanese people's genetics and their diets. They also don't gorge themselves in food and their "fast food" was much healthier and most people see "fast food" as a bowl of noodles. I don't think fish have anything to do with it, but they do eat less red meat.
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