就在全世界都在为青少年吸烟问题感到困扰的时候，来自日本的一条消息似乎让我们找到了一种解决办法。安装神奇的年龄识别器，让我们赶紧看看日本是怎样解决青少年吸烟问题的。

Cigarette vending machines in Japan may soon start counting wrinkles, crow's feet and skin sags to see if the customer is old enough to smoke.

日本的香烟自动售卖机很快就可以通过观测买烟者脸上的皱纹，鱼尾纹和皮肤松弛度来判断他们是否达到了法定年龄。

The legal age for smoking in Japan is 20 and as the country's 570,000 tobacco vending machines prepare for a July regulation requiring them to ensure buyers are not underage, a company has developed a system to identify age by studying facial features.

日本法定吸烟年龄是20岁。继一家公司开发出一套通过根据顾客面部特征来判断其年龄的系统之后，日本全国上下57万台香烟自动贩卖机将根据日本政府7月份出台的法规，使用该系统判断是否可以将香烟卖给顾客。

By having the customer look into a digital camera attached to the machine, Fujitaka Co's system will compare facial characteristics, such as wrinkles surrounding the eyes, bone structure and skin sags, to the facial data of over 100,000 people, Hajime Yamamoto, a company spokesman said.

富士高公司发言人山本一步表示，顾客们在购买香烟时需看向安装在贩卖机上的一部数码摄影机，面部识别系统将随后开始将顾客的眼角纹路、骨骼结构和皮肤松弛程度等面部特征与10万人的面部数据进行对比。

"With face recognition, so long as you are an adult, you can buy cigarettes like before. The problem of minors borrowing (identification) cards to purchase cigarettes could be avoided as well," Yamamoto said.

山本说：“使用这种面部识别系统，只要你是成年人，就可以像从前一样购买香烟。未成年人借长辈们的身份证来购买香烟的行为也可以因此避免。”

Japan's finance ministry has already given permission to an age-identifying smart card called "taspo" and a system that can read the age from driving licenses.

日本财政部已经批准了taspo年龄鉴定智能卡的使用，同时这种面部识别系统可以通过驾驶证确定顾客年龄。

Yamamoto said the system could correctly identify about 90 percent of the users, with the remaining 10 percent sent to a "grey zone" for "minors that look older, and baby-faced adults," where they would be asked to insert their driving license.

山本表示，该系统可以正确识别出90%的用户年龄，而剩余10%的少数派“看起来老态的年轻人和拥有娃娃脸的成年人”将被发往专设的“灰色区域”，这时这些顾客会被要求插入驾驶证。

Underage smoking has been on a decline in Japan, but a health ministry survey in 2004 showed 13 percent of boys and 4 percent of girls in the third year of high school--those aged 17 to 18--smoked every day.

虽然日本的未成年人吸烟数量有所下降，但是卫生部在2004年的调查显示，17、18岁的高三年级群体中有13%的男孩和4%的女孩每天都会吸烟。