Here's a Look Inside a Futuristic Japanese Bakery

Advanced technology in Japanese restaurants is not exactly a new thing — remember that sexy robot nightclub in Tokyo? — but now there's a bakery whose cash registers have the ability to recognize pastries without barcodes or human intervention. Here's a BBC News tour of Donq Bakery, which installed this recognition software to help with efficiency. The system has learned various configurations of all the handmade pastries so that new employees can still work the register without needing to remember names of the pastries.

Apparently this technology has been in development for some time now, a collaboration between the Brain Corporation and the University of Hyogo. While explaining the device in more details, a Brain development manager tells DigInfo that the system could be applied to vegetables or medicine in the future. Here, go get your mind blown:

Video: Bakery Recognizes What You Are Eating

Video: Bakery goods POS visual recognition system on trial in Tokyo bakery

· Bakery Recognizes What You Are Eating [BBC News via Times-Picayune]
· Bakery goods POS visual recognition system on trial in Tokyo bakery [YouTube via PopSci]
· All Robots Coverage on Eater [-E-]