If you haven’t yet noticed; we here at BoobNewb love vending machines. We love them because they provide goodies in a quick and timely manner for lazy people like us. In North America, we’re pretty tame when it comes to vending machines. In countries like the Netherlands, you can get fast food meals out of vending machines and in Japan they sell everything from shoes to women’s panties in vending machines. We simply sell chips, chocolate bars and on the rare occasion a nice bagel or sandwich. There are many companies and entrepreneurs that are trying to find new ways to use vending machine technology to enrich our lives. Here are a few neat concepts surrounding vending machines that you may see being used in the near future.

This vending machine is used to charge up electronics such as PDAs , MP3 players, cell phones and other such electronic devices.The ChargeBox offers a solution, which consists of 6 small lockers, each with 4 unique chargers that can power 90% of our mobile devices.Many airports don’t allow the recharging of electronics due to energy consumption concerns so this vending machine is designed to allow users to pay a fee and have their items recharged for them in about one hour’s time.

Motorola has come up with a great new vending machine that offers cell phones and cell phone accessories to users in high traffic areas. It can be a pain in the ass to have lost a cell phone or charger and have all the electronics stores closed. This option will allow users to purchase these things in case they ever run into a situation like this where they need a cell phone or charger right away without hesitation.

Anytime you hear the word beer and vending machine in the same sentence; you know it’s going to be something good. The barhand is an automated vending machine that dispenses beer beverages through a robotic arm. The vending machine can hold over 300 bottles and shuts off during last call. We’re still unsure of how underage drinking or drunks will be prevented from gaining multiple bottles of beer so hopefully the robotic arm can invent a pimp hand to slap those people silly.

We didn’t think it was possible once we heard about it at first but Moobella is a vending machine that will create ice cream for you in under 45 seconds. You simply choose the flavors that you want and if something becomes unavailable; a chip inside the machine will alert headquarters to send a new supply to the machine low on that flavor. The ice cream is flash freezed which allows for the ice cream to be frozen at room temperatures and be made on demand. So far we have yet to see too many of these machines but hope that this freezing process works better in motion than in theory and doesn’t need to be repaired too often.

The first bunch of vending machines selling electronics in the USA has hit Laguna Beach. A vending machine in Westminster Mall sells Ipod players and accessories to anyone willing to buy one. The good thing about buying one of these Apple products is that you don’t have to interact with a salesperson at your local electronics store and can simply purchase the product and be on your way.

Many companies such as McDonald’s have struck deals with vending machine companies to sell or rent DVDs. One such company has a vending machine called Movie Studio Express which will hold over 300 DVD movies to either buy or rent as well as feature advertisements and previews of the movies that you can watch before making a purchase decision. The Movie Studio Express accepts credit cards as well as debit cards and is fast and easy to use.

The Quickstore 24 is an all-in-one vending machine that uses fingerprint scanners to activate goodies. You simply scan your fingerprint and the machine reads it and delivers food to you. You can use a preset cash value at the beginning of the day and not have to pay every time you want a snack. You also get to play a mini-game like a casino which allows you to possibly win a free snack as well. People may have an ethical issue with the fingerprint option but we like the free snack idea and not having to pay each time we want to eat something.

In Japan and certain parts of Europe, condom vending machines are a part of daily life. Simply place your money and choose the size or style of condom that you want and off you go.

Also in Japan, at certain subway stations you can purchase flowers from a vending machine if you’re in a hurry and the flower shop is closed. Different varieties of flowers include roses as well as specific potted plants.

Yep, if you haven’t guessed it already; these products are also available in Japan. You can get different hot foods like hot dogs, hamburgers or even pizza from these vending machines. The machines act almost like a microwave that heats the food up fast once money is inserted and gives you a quick meal. We’re still waiting to hear from someone on whether this heated food is actually any good though.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 13th, 2007 at 5:38 pm and is filed under Electronics & Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.