As well as persuading people to visit sites carrying PepsiCo products, the experiment with Foursquare has also giventhe firm useful data about, for example, foot traffic to stores, which it can use to tailor promotions.
All of that naturally comes with some trade-offs (less defined video processing is one examplegiven), but the researchers say those are often outweighed by the benefits -- like cheaper, faster chips that require far less power.