An Ice Cream Vending Machine That Literally Takes A Smile As Tender
Written by Evan SchumanJune 24th, 2010
Even for an ice cream story, you can't get much more saccharin than this: A Unilever-backed vending machine that literally takes consumer smiles as payment for its product. Well, a smile plus a photo marketing release form coupled with a biometric guess of the consumer's age and gender.
Unilever, the $49 billion ice cream giant—the world's largest ice cream company, which owns brands including Ben & Jerry’s, Good Humor, Breyers, Klondike and Wall's—is testing an ice cream machine in Lisbon (Portugal), Singapore and Paris (a U.K. location is imminent) that asks customers to smile. The machine even uses a shock sensor, constantly captured video and high-speed wireless connections to defend itself against theft attempts.
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Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? 
-Christine
