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Motorola Unveils Phone Vending Machines
DaveWick79 writes "The 'Instantmoto' is being installed at 20 malls and airports nationwide and will carry about 30 products including 12 phones and 18 accessories. Included is the popular Razr and you can choose whether or not to purchase with a service plan. Instead of being dropped into a tray, apparently a robotic arm will 'gently deliver' the product to consumers. The only question now is, will we be able to pay for these items using our cell phones?"
use the cell phones I want to purchases to purchases the cell phone I am purchasing?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Instead of being dropped into a tray, apparently a robotic arm will 'gently deliver' the product to consumers.
That's much better than the prototype I saw, where the robot arm disembowels the customer and spills their entrails all over the linoleum.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Here's the link.
n g-machine-133740.php
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/ipod-vendi
Just saw this concept in Ultraviolet -- you could buy a phone from a vending machine, and it would be "printed", ready to go. It usually takes much longer for a concept like this to go from scifi to reality!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I remember that some company in the late 90's had a brain-dead business plan to sell "disposable" cellphones in supermarkets and vendor machines. Made out of cheap plastic and designed to be thrown away once the minutes in it were exhausted...
Yeah, probably the people in charge of this "great idea" are not panhandling now, as I thought they would.
No sig for the moment.
Is if these are being installed in airports, will we be able to take them onto planes in the future?
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
cellphone vending machines just seem like a bad idea to me.. the general public is not very sharp, and need things spelled out for them by an "informed" consultant (aka guy in collared shirt who makes min wage + %).
ipod vending on the other hand.. not nearly so many options, and i could see myself using an ipod vending machine in an airport. generally when i am flying, i am in a rush and trying not to forget things, and inevitably i forget something stupid.. like bringing a book to read, etc. this is why periodical shops exist in airports. if the vending machine had an ipod that included the ability to perform itunes purchase + wireless download enabled, that is a combination i can see being very effective in airports; buy ipod, download $30 worth of itunes music, enjoy flight. of course, it's moot because ipod doesn't do wireless download [yet?].
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
It's going to be interesting to see what price they put on the phones without a service plan. I suspect that the phone companies inflate the value of the phones that they discount, leading to inflated sales tax payments in most states in the USA (for those who don't understand this, when you buy a phone with a service plan, because services are not usually subject to sales taxes, the state insists that the vendor collects and pays sales tax based on a nominal full price of the phone, even if the price paid for the phone is discounted, sometimes to zero).
If the price without a plan is less than the price that the phone company would normally quote for the phone, one could argue that less sales taxes are due on a new discounted phone.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I have a hard enough time trying to pull a big old stuffed animal out with those robotic arms much less a tiny tiny phone. At 50 bucks a pop rather than 50 cents, I'm going to waste a lot of money.
is news? given that there are already plenty of ipod vending machines etc in similar locations why is this worthy of any sort of attention? now if there was a hack to get free product from them.... then i'd be interested.
Let me be the first to say this gives a whole new meaning to "reach out and touch someone"...
I first saw a soda vending machine similar to this in Germany. A little elevator moved up, a robot arm gently pushed the soda onto the elevator, and it brought it down to the door. I chuckled at the ingenuity, but I really started to appreciate it after coming back and using the soda machine at church. It unceremoniously dumps it down the shoot. When you open it, it, well.... SHOOTS!!!
That soda machine ranked up there with the self-cleaning toilet seat for pure engineering coolness! Third runner up was the radar that told you how close to the curb you were. That was the first time I had ever seen that!
Those danged German engineers! They think of EVERYTHING!!!
dochood
Then how about preloaded content... on the mobile?
t ed_smartphones_reveal_corporate_secrets/0,13006174 4,139268276,00.htm!
In Japan I reckon you could make a bit of a killing by preloading the mobiles with "schoolgirl" content! Some text messages, photos, a bit of video, voice mail, and some music... pretend it was an actual schoolgirls mobile that hasn't been deleted and is being resold - executives are doing it already with sensitive corporate data their smartphones and laptops http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/_Undele
Yeah- the idea is that you don't have to interact with a person. Any more it seems that many people are more comfortable interacting with machines anyhow.
Have you dealth with any of the winners working at the cell phone store? They're almost as bad as Radio Shack associates (or whatever they're called.)
$30 Off All Plans: Use code TRIPLESAWBUCK
Yeah- the idea is that you don't have to interact with a person.
Heh -- I suppose they'll buy the phones to interact exclusively with machines.
We now have a generation or two of people who are perfectly content to talk to an inanimate object. This is just the next step -- people who only talk to inanimate objects
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Seriously, I'm not about to go buying 150-450$ of iPod + iTunes music on a spur-of-the-moment thing from a vending machine at an airport. How many people are honestly going to do this?
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Its hard enough to buy a Cell phone at a store that just sells Cell phones. Will it be easier to buy them from a vending machine? Will I still have to listen to a speech about insurance, or calling plans? Will I get my soul back when the contract expires?!
Well...
I bet the terrorists will just love these.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Was at the Grammercy Park Hotel in NYC earlier this week. In the room is a JBL iPod dock and a little note saying something like, "this iPod is provided as a courtesy for you during your stay. If you wish to purchase it and the songs we have preloaded, $750 will be added to your bill." The weird part? There wasn't any iPod in the dock! I had to call down to the front desk and say, "Hey! WTF?". They explained that the hotel had just opened and the iPods were not available yet. I'm thinking, "Duh! Then how about removing the little freakin' sign saying you're going to charge me $750 for the missing iPod???
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
That's the handjob machine. You don't want to get these mixed up!
Engineering is the art of compromise.