Ant Financial, Alibaba’s financial services platform, revealed a new conceptual design for a “life services platform” called Up on Thursday.
According to the introduction video for the new design, Up is a life services platform using augmented reality (AR) device and facial recognition. Up will match and display user-information visible when using an AR device and will scan a user’s face wherever they go. On the basis of their different identities and user information, users can enjoy different privileges from service providers. For example, a person identified as a new customer can get a free dessert while a person identified as overweight can get a discount if the meal they order is under 300 calories.
“Up is an interesting design which helps users make more friends and get to know each other better,” said “Quick”, the chief architect of Up.
It’s become a tradition for tech companies to introduce some interesting and fun concepts around April Fool’s Day. In 2014, Ant Financial released “KungFu”. Through a simple scan, the user can connect their personal items such as pets, a watch they own or a part of themselves like their face or a tattoo with a payment scanning function like a QR code. This function took off and is still available for use. In 2015, Ant Financial launched the design named “Everywhere”. Through Everywhere, users could post about any service conceivable that they might need and connect to nearby people to complete the transaction. For example, you might find yourself posting a request on Everywhere for toilet paper if you ended up in a situation where you really needed some.
(Top photo from ec.donews.com)