We have countertop devices that blend, toast, and bake bread. We can make our own wine at home, and there are even machines to make beer at home. So it didn’t seem completely implausible this past week when the story spread across the newsphere that you could toss a few ingredients in a machine no larger than an electric kettle and pour out some lovely wine only a few days later. Just very implausible. And it was.

There were a few red flags in the product’s original pitch: the idea that you could make and age palatable wine in only a few days, for example. Or the entire machine being run by an iPhone app.

The $499 machine that provides you with unlimited wine was, alas, a hoax meant to get attention for the nonprofit Wine to Water. Their purpose is simple: they started out holding wine fundraisers to raise funds to get people all over the world access to clean water.

There we have it: an example of how a simple, well-executed social media hoax can get millions of people to hit “share” without giving something critical thought, yet still create good in the world.

Miracle Machine [Wine to Water]

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