Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Norwegian Epic Wants To Recognize You

High tech advances are to be expected on every new ship to launch and Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Cruise Line's largest Freestyle Cruising ship to date, is no exception. One Epic "innovation" that we've a seen on other ships is an in-room interactive television capability that I don't view as particularly exciting, but another captured my attention. It's Youfinder®, a cutting edge facial recognition system that links all guests' onboard photographs.

How does it work?. When guests board Norwegian Epic, their picture is taken and linked to their cruise card. This provides Image’s proprietary indexing system, YouFinder®, with the ability to match guests’ faces and identification details anytime a photo is taken afterwards. Using both facial recognition and patented indexing techniques, Youfinder® provides the most accurate linking of guests to their photos. When guests want to view and purchase their photos, they go to an on-board kiosk, swipe their cruise card and they can immediately view their cruise memories. From this, they can order select images and have them printed out by the ship's photo team or they can order a CD with all images and take it home.

That sounds like real innovation to me—no more fumbling through thousands of photos to find my own. However, in order to make it work it might not be a bad idea to primp up a bit before that first photo is shot. I know I'll have a comb handy and will be powdering my nose and freshening my lipstick when I get ready to board Norwegian Epic's gangway in Miami next month.

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