And perhaps in a bid to get more people to change their mindsets and get ride of these wasteful tendencies, the Swap-O-Matic came to be. It works like a vending machine, only instead of selling stuff that you might need on the go, it’s a trading station instead.

The designer behind the Swap-O-Matic is Brooklyn designer Lina Fenequito. Her vending machine has thirteen compartments where the items to be traded can be placed in. It issues credits as its currency instead of cash. Using the touchscreen interface, users can keep track of their credits, put their stuff up for swapping, and take stuff that they want as well.

Swap-o-Matic is a great idea, but until someone comes along to fund larger scale production and distribution, it will likely remain the only one of its kind.

[via Springwise via Gizmag]

Like many Asian countries, Japan has got pretty good free Wi-Fi coverage, but like all things, there’s room for improvement, which is where these vending machines come in. Asahi [JP] says that they will allow people within 160 feet to access the Internet for free, on multiple devices, without registering.

Building Wi-Fi hotspots into vending machines make good sense, because they already have to be plugged into a power source, and presumably these days they also need to communicate sales and stock information back to the main office. Over the next five years, Asahi plans on putting out about 10,000 of these machines. For 2012, they plan on installing 1,000.

And no, the beer isn’t free, just the Wi-Fi.

[via CrunchGear]

This special vending machine uses drips of coffee poured carefully through milk to form a face on the top of your hot beverage. In this particular case, it makes the face of a woman, floating in your foamy cuppa cappu. Apparently, that’s a pattern that Yojiya Cafe teaches its human baristas to make too. Here’s a video clip of the machine working it’s magic. Trust me when I say that since it does all of its tricks behind closed doors, it’s not very thrilling though.

Heck, there could be a little tiny barista in there doing that for all I know. From what I can tell, the face is the only pattern this machine makes, but it would be cool if you could pick from others. I’m sure they’ll eventually figure that out if they haven’t already.

This particular machine is located at the Yojiya Cafe in Haneda Airport if you happen to be in Tokyo and want to check it out for yourself.

[via YouTube]

Developed by Sanden, in cooperation with Okaya Electronics and Intel, this concept vending machine has a 65-inch full HD vertical display on front. The transparent touchscreen display can not only show animated graphics, but provides product information and merchandising, and even acts as a clock while waiting for its next customer.

The prototype machine even offers facial recognition technology so it could display customized menus based on the individual user as they walk by.  And if it doesn’t know you, it can display products based on what demographic it THINKS you fit into based on your age or gender. How Minority Report of them.

[via DigInfo.TV]

The VendScreen will offers a touchscreen device that can be added onto an existing vending machine or integrated into new ones. Other than just being cooler, the new screens also provide the caloric and nutritional data display that the government is forcing on the vending industry.

The screens will show the products and allow the user to search for a specific product too. They will also handle cashless payments and can track the inventory inside the machine and tell the company what it needs to stock up on. This sounds pretty cool and it would be nice to see the screen in action.

The 7-foot tall machine has an acrylic globe with a diameter of 42 ft. I think the globe itself could hold more than 14,450 pieces of gumball, because as it is there’s a spherical insert inside that pushes the contents to the wall to make them more visible and give the illusion that the container is packed.

The mechanism and the dispenser are 49″ from the base and as you can see is at just the right height to allow even kids to get a gumball or two (thousand) without assistance. You don’t need to insert a coin to get a gumball, but you will need to pay Hammacher Schlemmer $3,900 (USD) to get the machine. I’m not sure if it comes with 14,450 gumballs, but at that price it should, and not a gumball less.

[via This is Why I'm Broke]

The machine is packed with live hens. The point was to show people the conditions that some chicken farmers force their birds to live in. Rather than dispensing eggs or chicken legs, this machine handed out coins with eggs on them. The numbers on the coins went along with the sort of conditions the chickens were in.

The main thing was that only 0 (Ökohaltung) and 1 (free range) are ok to buy. The coins with eggs on them having 2 (bottom position) and 3 (cage) are not to be purchased according to NOAH. If anyone knows what that word with number 0 means let us know in the comments.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via NOAH]

Fresh baked bread isn’t something we get a lot of in my area, the stores tend to bake once per day so if you get there too late it’s as cold had hard as a loaf wrapped in plastic. The French on the other had have a machine that you can slip a coin into and 90 seconds later the thing pops out a nice fresh baguette.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The guy that shot the video says that the taste and texture won’t be putting any bakeries out of business soon, but I bet it tastes better than the “fresh” bread at my local grocery store.

[via Super Punch via BoingBoing]

Yep, these machines are designed to dispense gold or silver coins and ingots. Designed by Space International [JP], the machines can handle quantities from a gram to 1/4 of an ounce. At today’s prices, that puts the most expensive item in the machines at about $400 (USD). I guess when you look at those pricey Best Buy vending machines, it’s not all that crazy to think that someone might make a purchase out of one of these. That said, I’m not sure why you’d actually need to buy gold or silver on a whim.

The first gold vending machines are being installed in central Tokyo, where there’s little concern about criminals breaking into these. If they had one of these here in Chicago, it would be broken open and emptied in a day. Despite the fact the machine says “SPACE GOLD,” it currently only stocks gold found here on Earth. Perhaps if they did start mining gold in outer space, they could demand an even higher premium.

[via Bloomberg via Japan Trends]

Here’s Tanaka and the vending system, which he unfortunately doesn’t test:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It’s pretty much like using debit or credit cards for transaction, except more complicated. Also, I don’t know why they decided that people would like their purchases to be tweeted. It’s not like people tweet every single detail of their – oh wait.

[via Gearfuse]

Yup. This machine holds an army of living crustaceans, all put on ice enough to keep them alive. Sleepy, but alive. The machine was designed to provide quick and easy access to these critters, without a long trip to go buy them outside of the city.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The machine, located in a Nanjing, China subway station sells about 200 crabs a day at a cost ranging from about $2 to $7, depending on the size of the crabs. They already have a second machine in operation, and plan to expand to other cities in the near future.

[via Doobybrain]

The specialized banana machine maintains bananas at their ideal temperature of 55.4 degrees Farenheit, and sells bananas for ¥130 (appx. $1.50 USD) a piece or ¥390 (appx. $4.50) for a bunch.

There are many people who rely on vending machines for sustenance during the day, especially office workers and students. You don’t always have a choice. I know the feeling. A few snacks could allow you to continue working, and I suppose bananas are healthier than Snickers or Twinkies.

Still, the banana machine doesn’t make much sense to me. Bananas can go bad pretty quickly. It makes more sense to go find a fruit vendor and get your bananas there. In Asia, there are fruit vendors all over the place. In Taiwan, you can find them almost everywhere, if you know where to look.

[via Fareastgizmos]

Friendly Vending was Baggermans’ industrial design graduation project from the Eindhoven Univerisity of Technology. The machine features an electronically-controlled vending system that allows users to interact with their soda of choice by pointing at the drink they’re interested in consuming. Not only does the machine do a little dance with the cans to draw you in, but just whip out your Sylar-esque finger, point it at the can you want, and the machine opens up that door so you can grab your can. Check out some Friendly Vending in the video clip below:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Now we’re not sure how Guus plans on collecting money with this new system. Maybe it’s so friendly that the soda would be free. Or maybe with an RFID remote payment system as you approach the machine. We’re just hypothesizing on that part, but it sounds cool to us. Either way, it’s fun to watch dancing soda cans.

[via Gajitz]

The Bike Dispenser first came out in 2005 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. It’s actually a renting machine – users have to return the bike to the nearest dispenser at their destination. The bikes are equipped with RFID tags that allows the company to track the bikes, in case people forget that they left their rented bike at home. We do that sometimes.

Gold-to-go is, as you may have guessed, a vending machine that sells gold. It sells 1g, 5g and 10g gold bullion as well as Krugerrand gold coins. TG-Gold-Super-Markt, makers of the gold vending machine, tells us that the bullion and coins are intended to be given as presents and not forms of investment. Still, I don’t think this type of vending machine will last more than a day here in the Philippines. This thing would pillaged in hours.

And from Pennsylvania comes the Live Bait & Tackle vending machine. Yup, a vending machine that sells organisms. That will soon be fed to bigger organisms. You think PETA approves of this? Check out the other 5 vending machines at Woman’s Day.

[via The Presurfer]

Inventor Claudio Torghele (not sure if he’s the guy in the pic) says that he got the idea ten years ago while he was working in – drum roll please – the United States, in California to be precise: “At food courts I saw a trend toward vending machines.” I’m wondering why he didn’t choose to put up the machines in the US rather than earning the ire of his countrymen.

Let’s Pizza offers four kinds of toppings: tomato and cheese, vegetables, ham, and bacon. After a topping is selected, the machine mixes flour and water into a drum. The drum spins to form a lump of dough that is then pressed to form a 12-inch disk. A squirt of tomato here, a sprinkle of cheese there, some… other stuff, and then it’s baked in an infrared oven. The finished product is then placed into a cardboard tray.

Pino Morelli, head of the Association of Italian Pizzerias, is insulted that such a device will soon co-exist with local pizzerias:  “It might be alright for McDonalds and other fast-food chains or for foreign markets like the US, China and India but anyone wanting to eat a real pizza has to go to a traditional pizzeria.” He’s not pissed off because there’s a new competitor in town – and I also think that fast food has a long way to go before it can be as delicious as restaurant/homemade food – he’s concerned that the machine might give pizza and Italy a bad name: “The pizza is the symbol of the ‘Made in Italy’ brand and we should let it live and prosper in peace.”

Would you buy instant pizza? Or will you let pizzas live and prosper in peace? Before reading this article were you aware that pizzas are alive?

[via Times Online and Slice]

Best Buy Express has been out and about for a while, but this is the first time I’ve seen pictures of the vending machines in the wild. Yes, vending machines… but instead of cheap plastic crap, at the Best Buy machines, you can purchase expensive plastic crap gadgets at airports without emptying your wallet. That’s right: instead of the usual airport markup, the machines are stocked with items at Best Buy’s typical prices.

Clearly, the vending machine that sells digital video cameras is meant for the person who can’t spend a vacation without thinking of the YouTube videos. Maybe biting the bullet and buying a few cameras and handheld game systems will teach us all to double-check our bags before we leave for the airport.

[A Blog of Sorts via GoNintendo]