Advertisements surround us in the physical world. In a constant effort to engage us, new products, signs, banners, and window displays have become traps for our eyes. Every turn of the head is a victory for a business that wants your money, time, and loyalty, in the same way that a click through a Web ad to a company’s site can produce potential revenue. There are two major differences though: real life physical advertising has a higher production cost (and is therefore a greater liability when an ad is mismarketed) and Internet ads are easily measured in terms of popularity and success.

IMRSV, a technology company dedicated to providing solutions for these kind of real life data analysis problems, is out to make physical advertisement space viable again with the announcement of Cara, a Data-as-a-Service (DaaS)offering that turns ordinary webcam hardware into the eye of a dedicated market analyst. It’s a technology so promising in fact that Time Inc named IMRSV one of the ten most promising startups of 2013.

Available for download through the IMRSV website at $39.95 a month per camera, Cara does some impressive analytical work for the marketer that needs to know the success of an ad in real time. By using face detection abilities Cara boasts 92 percent accuracy when identifying demographics.

Using statistics gathered from up to 25 passers by at one moment within 25 feet of the camera device, Cara will be able to tell advertisers the age and gender of any onlooker as well as how many glances the ad receives the duration of said glances.

About 90 percent of commerce still takes place in the physical world, so being able to have real time analytics of this kind, when leveraged alongside custom third party software will no doubt help advertisers stay sharp with better targeted advertising that doesn’t overstay its welcome. An obstacle is encountered when it comes down to the very root of the solution though, and that’s technophobia.

Having worked with privacy advocates in the practical application of Cara, IMRSV however assures users that the sensors only collect data. No video is recorded and no personal information is being shared (unless you count a couple of anonymous statistics such as facial dimensions). In the end, adoption of these solutions will increase the proliferation of Web cams though and the intention of privacy may not be enough. After all, no one went out and bought a laptop with a camera with the intention of being peeped on right?