You might call them bodegas, corner stores or convenience stores, but you’re probably familiar with that one locally owned store that has exactly what you need at the odd hour when you needed it. They’re more common in cities than elsewhere, but there’s a startup out to replace them entirely — with giant minibars. [More]
vending machines
Need An Aspirin Or Some Deodorant? CVS Vending Machines Offer On-The-Go Options
By 9.11.17
We’ve all been there: You’re going about your day when suddenly, your stomach is growling, you’re struck with a blinding headache, and you realize you forgot to put on deodorant before you left the house. So now if you’re having one of those days when everything goes wrong, CVS wants you to hit up one of their brand-new vending machines for a quick fix. [More]
Uniqlo Wants To Sell Shirts In Airport Vending Machines
By 8.2.17
Splashed by a cab in the rain at the airport? Hit by a bit of projectile vomit unleashed by your offspring? Uniqlo will sell you a shirt out of a vending machine at the airport. [More]
Walmart Has A Giant Grocery Vending Machine For Online Order Pickup Now
By 6.6.17
Back in November, Walmart began testing a giant orange vending machine that allowed online customers to pick up their orders without having to wait in line or talk to other people. Now, the company is reportedly testing a similar system, but for online grocery orders. [More]
Hackers Use College’s Connected Vending Machines To Attack Network
By 2.14.17
What do you get when you combine Internet of Things devices, an overworked network, and an over abundance of seafood-related domain searches? A university attacked by its own malware-infected connected devices. [More]
Snapchat Uses Vending Machines to Sell ‘Spectacle’ Smart Sunglasses
By 11.10.16
Forget about pop-up stores or branded kiosks. The new thing for selling your tech product is apparently vending machines — at least according to SnapChat, which is using bright yellow dispensers to market its new line of Spectacle photo- and video-taking sunglasses. [More]
Nation’s First Pizza ATM Proves Dreams Really Can Come True
By 8.9.16
Someone at Xavier University in Cincinnati must have a direct line to the gods of pizza (who rule our desires from atop their throne of cheese on Mount Pepperoni) because the Cincinnati place of higher learning is getting the country’s very first pizza ATM. [More]
We’re All Moving To Paris, Where There Is A Meat Vending Machine
By 3.18.16
What’s a hungry carnivore to do when a sudden craving for meat hits at an inconvenient hour? If you’re lucky enough to live in Paris, you can now visit a meat vending machine that dispenses steaks and sausages 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And if you don’t live in Paris yet, we’re moving there and could use some roommates. [More]
Pepsi’s New Hello Goodness Vending Machines Offer Only “Healthy” Options
By 12.14.15
PepsiCo wants consumers to know that it is taking their health seriously, and to demonstrate that, the company says it plans to install vending machines offering only healthy products around the country. [More]
FDA Giving Businesses Another Year To Comply With Rules Requiring Calorie Counts On Menus
By 7.9.15
Restaurants and other businesses that were living under a deadline to include calorie counts on menus and displays will get a bit of wiggle room to comply with the rule passed by the Food and Drug Administration last fall. The agency now says food purveyors will have another year to get their acts together, extending the previous deadline from Dec. 1, 2015 to Dec. 1, 2016. [More]
Takata Is Not The Biggest Product Recall In U.S. History
By 5.20.15
The recall of Takata airbags used cars made by multiple manufacturers is massive: currently at 34 million vehicles in the United States alone and the list will apparently grow longer. Many news outlets are referring to this as the largest product recall in United States history, but it isn’t. [More]
Apple Pay Gets More Useful, Coming To 200,000 Vending Machines & Other Self-Serve Devices
By 1.27.15
Apple Pay is not (yet) available at some of the nation’s largest retailers as they prepare to introduce their own mobile payment system, meaning you can’t use it to buy a week’s worth of groceries at Walmart or a TV at Best Buy, or even pay for your prescriptions at CVS and Rite-Aid. But what about those transactions on the opposite end of the spectrum, the ones with dollar values so small that you may feel odd not paying in cash? One company says it will be bringing Apple Pay to hundreds of thousands of vending machines and other self-serve devices. [More]
Parents Of Four-Year-Old Say Son Got A Nazi-Themed Ring In Toy Vending Machine
By 12.12.14
You just never know what might pop out of the small plastic bubble toy vending machines found at the front of many stores and restaurants. You could get a cute colorful dinosaur or a Nazi-themed plastic ring. The latter was reportedly the prize for a four-year-old at a Tulsa Family Dollar store earlier this week. [More]
“Molesting A Vending Machine” Is Not What It Sounds Like
By 10.3.14
Sure, everyone giggled when they saw the headline that a man in Florida was arrested for “molesting [a] vending machine.” While you may have pictured a humiliated man caught performing unspeakable acts with a coin return slot, the real world is out to ruin the strange places where our imaginations go. [More]
A New Convenience Near Nightclubs: Shoe Vending Machines
By 8.20.14
Ladies, how often does this happen to you? You’re out for a night of fun, wearing your highest, prettiest heels, when the festivities continue for longer than your feet can hold out in those shoes. My answer is “never,” but apparently this is a common enough problem that it has been solved with vending machines near nightclubs that sell acceptably cute flats. [More]
Target Field Introduces Self-Serve Beer Machines For MLB All-Star Game
By 7.8.14
This year, Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game will be held at Target Field in Minnesota. In advance of the game, the stadium has solved one of the great sporting-event dilemmas of our time: the possibility that you might miss some of the action on the field while waiting in line for a cold beer. What do you do? Target Field’s answer: vending machines. [More]
Pot Vending Machine Is Like That Awesome Idea You Had Once In College, Except It’s Real
By 4.14.14
It was around two in the morning one winter morning back in 1996 — or wait, was it three a.m. in 2001? You can’t remember. All you know is the brilliant idea you had that one time after watching Half Baked and smoking you know, “the reefer,” is now a reality. A new company has debuted its pot vending machine in the only place that can welcome it right now, Colorado. [More]
How A Man (And A Forklift) Conquered A Vending Machine, Then Lost His Job
By 2.20.14
We’ve all been there, the utter disappointment of having your candy bar stuck in the evil teeth of a vending machine. The sweet treat hanging by a thread, mocking you from the top rows. How far are you willing to go to satisfy your sweet tooth? For one Iowa man scoring his treat cost him a job. [More]
