In Minority Report, when Tom Cruise walks into a shopping centre an advertising board scans his retina and a video advert greets him by name and suggests he knock back a Guinness. In Britain this week, sci-fi is about to become sci-fact - for women only.
A 40-second interactive advertuses facial-recognition technology to decide the gender of the person looking at it and then vary its content. It will be unveiled on a bus stop in Oxford St in London's West End on Thursday.
Only women will be able to view the full £30,000 ($57,000) advert commissioned by the children's charity Plan UK as part of its "Because I Am a Girl" campaign, which aims to ensure girls in the world's poorest countries are able to receive a good education.
If the device recognises a man it will display a message directing him to the charity's website.
The advert, which will have a two-week trial, will use a high-definition camera to scan hundreds of thousands of passersby. It will guess their gender based on the distance between their eyes, width of their nose, length of the jawline and shape of their cheekbones.
Neil Chapman, the head of the creative team at Clear Channel UK, the company which designed the ad, said full-blown Minority Report advertising would be his "idea of hell".
His company is talking to other clients to get more targeted advertising campaigns launched this year.
The technology has been trialled in other countries. Facebook launched facial-recognition software for its photo services last year, the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas has used it on digital displays to tailor recommendations to passers-by, while the electrical giant NEC is using it to collect information on the age range and gender of customers at shops across Japan.
