The Subversive Vending Machine

Vending machines or automated coin operated commerce have represented a subversive element in our culture since Richard Carlisle first came up with a machine to distribute his criminal writings that "dropped a customer's desired book after money was inserted and a dial positioned to a corresponding number."

There is a machine in Italy that "whips up flour, water, tomato sauce and fresh ingredients to produce a piping-hot-pizza in about three minutes." After the global economic downturn, a machine popped up at Germany's Frankfurt Airport dispensing one-gram wafers of gold. In a drug-prone section of Sydney, Australia, a machine dispenses clean hypodermic needles. At a beverage machine in Tokyo, consumers pay for libations not in money but by watching a 30-second advertisement.

.:reason.com->

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Posted: May 23rd, 2010
at 2:22pm by Koookiecrumbles


Categories: business,robots,weaponry,gear,grub,design

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