Hasta La Gadget!

Months after Coca-Cola rolled out their ‘Open Happiness’ vending machines, Pepsi is following suit. They won’t be giving away free bottles of soda for hugs, although you will be able to give people the gift of Pepsi and play a game to score free drinks.

You can buy drinks for yourself or for a friend. To send a gift to someone, all you have to do is punch in the recipient’s email address and name. The machine will then send them a code, which they can key in on the machine to claim. Of course, that assumes your friend is somewhere near one of these machines as well.

The Pepsi vending machine is also programmed with a game that you can play to win 20-ounce beverage bottles for yourself.

Pretty cool vending machine, but I prefer Coca-Cola’s because, really, what can beat getting free Coke for a hug? What do you think?

The PepsiCo Interactive Vending Machine dispenses Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Sierra Mist Natural, Aquafina and Lipton Green Tea, and can be found at Columbiana Centre (Columbia, SC), Clackamas Town Center (Happy Valley, OR), Oglethorpe Mall (Savannah, GA), Oakwood Mall (Eau Claire, WI) and Park City Center (Lancaster, PA).

[via PopSop via NewLaunches]

Amazon has announced a new service further proving that you can buy just about anything from the massive online retailer. The new services called Amazon Wine, and as you can imagine, the service will ship wine to certain states. However, Amazon isn’t stockpiling a huge inventory of wine and then shipping bottles out directly. Rather the wine is purchased through Amazon, and then shipped directly from the vineyard.

Wine services are available in California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, and Washington, D.C. Presumably, the limited availability has to do with laws in various states governing the shipment of alcohol from outside of the state. Amazon says that more states will be participating in the program soon.

Naturally, to purchase the wine requires that the buyer be at least 21-years-old. If somehow a kid should happen to figure out how to get around that purchase requirement, the packages won’t be delivered unless someone at least 21 or older is home to sign. Amazon is charging $9.99 to ship up to six bottles of wine and Prime Shipping rates are not available for the wine service.

[via CNET]

Nothing tastes yuckier than beer that’s gone stale. Of course, you could just pour that old lager down the drain – or you could prevent your brew from going stale by getting the Bräuler Modular Growler System.

It’s basically the world’s first stainless steel modular growler system that lets you inject carbon dioxide into your brew before you drink it so it’s still as bubbly and good as ever, even though you’ve been carrying it around and shaking out all the CO2 from it the whole night (or day.)

The team behind the project recently launched a campaign on Kickstarter to raise funds for FreshCap, which is what you’re supposed to use to inject the carbon dioxide.

Interested? You get a Gen-3 basic set containing the Bräuler bottle and the FreshCap system for a minimum pledge of $100(USD). If you want the FreshCap only, you can get it by pitching in $50.

We’re not sure if Georgia Koukiou and Vassilis Anastassopoulos of the University of Patras in Greece like a tipple or not, but the pair have developed two algorithms that, when used with thermal imaging, could pick out drunk people in crowds. What is it that betrays your best intentions to look sober? As always, your face. Booze causes the blood-vessels in your visage to dilate, and the researchers used this principle to compare facial scans against a database of tipple-free mug shots. Likewise the duo found that when under the influence, the nose gets warmer, while the forehead cools — another visual check that the infrared can help identify. The hope is that using this technology, law-enforcement can make a judgement call based on more than just your wonky walk. But in our experience, the troublemakers are pretty good at outing themselves.

Filed under: Science, Alt

Scientists develop pair of algorithms that could enable thermal cameras to pick out drunk people originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jack Kieffer owns Cool Gizmo Toys, a blog full of geeky lists!