Pick N' Tell company wants to put webcam mirrors in clothing stores.

A new fashion company called Pickn'Tell has a high-tech solution to this shopper's dilemma. It allows you to try on clothes alone while still receiving to-the-minute critiques from friends, sitting at home by their computers. Pickn'Tell's vision -- now available at two clothing boutiques, in New York and Los Angeles -- involves a web-connected mirror, with an outward-facing miniature video camera installed. Shoppers can try on different outfits, record their images in mirrors and then automatically post the videos to Facebook or Twitter, where friends and family members can give the thumbs up or thumbs down. 

Say goodbye to awkwardly holding up a camera phone in order to snap a shot of an outfit: Now, the mirror is recording you.

(Before you run around screaming about how creepy this sounds, know that the company has no plans to put its camera-loaded mirrors in dressing rooms. These mirrors would be for the floor of the store only, not where customers are undressing, according to Pickn'Tell's vice president of business development, Mark Frieser).

Here's the technical setup for these robo-mirrors: Pickn'Tell takes a full-length mirror and cuts out a rectangle the size of a 10-inch tablet in the upper right corner. It affixes a tablet inside that rectangle, so that the screen of the tablet can act as a sort of monitor and communications hub for the shopper. Pickn'Tell attaches a webcam via wire to the tablet.

 Using the Pickn'Tell app on an iPhone or Android device, a shopper can connect to the mirror's tablet by inputting a unique connection code; that code turns on the camera inside the mirror. Using the smartphone, the shopper can then direct the mirror to either record a video for five seconds or take a snapshot. That footage then appears on the shopper's smartphone, which he or she can then post to Facebook or Twitter, for friends to comment on. 

The Pickn'Tell app has several other fashion-related functions: a barcode scanner, with which you can scan the barcodes of products you're interested in and add them to a potential buying list; a list of stores and boutiques, with coupons, catalogs and pricing information; and a miniature social network, so that you can follow which articles of clothing your friends envy or appreciate.

Perhaps most fascinating and unique is the option to connect with a Wi-Fi enabled, webcam-loaded mirror at a store and record your image and send it to your social networks. Other social-shopping apps, like Pose and VIZL, make store catalogs available on a smartphone and let someone share fashions with friends. But Pickn'Tell installs hardware in mirrors to facilitate that sharing. 

Convincing store owners to allow third-party webcams in their mirrors -- and then assuring shoppers that recording themselves in public is safe -- will be an obstacle for Pickn'Tell. So far, the startup, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, has installed its mirrors in trendy Runway Couture in New York City's SoHo neighborhood and in Bee Free Boutique in Los Angeles' Silver Lake district. Company representatives hope that, by the end of the year, their wired mirrors will be within a 15- to 20-minute car ride from Los Angeles (or a quick subway trip from New York), Frieser said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/pickntells-webcam-enabled-mirrors_n_1686972.html