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?"

can I

use the cell phones I want to purchases to purchases the cell phone I am purchasing?

Just like iPods

I've seen some of the iPod vending machines with the robotic arms. Seems like this is pretty much the same idea in the same locations.

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Here's the link.

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/ipod-vendin g-machine-133740.php [gizmodo.com]

ipod.. maybe not so bad.

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?].

Preloaded content?

Then how about preloaded content... on the mobile?

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 sc

Target audience?

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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How many people are honestly going to do this?

Well, some arabs will need spur-of-the-moment remote triggering devices. It's the whole 72 virgins thing...

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roughly the same number of people would do this as the number of people that could expense it to their business trip cost

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more than you think.

• Travellers who want an ipod.
• Travellers who forgot theirs and are going on a long trip
• Travellers who decide that it's time to upgrade or want a spare
• Last minute gifts

The average airline passenger is far above average in income and

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What if the cost of the iPod was a deposit, and you could drop your iPod at the 'Returns' counter at the destination airport and recieve 70% of your deposit back? Or if you fall in love with it mid-flight, you could just keep it...

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More importantly, how are you going to put music on the thing? Sure, slashdotters always have their laptops on them, but not everyone is toting their music collection to the mall or airport. I don't often buy candy bars or soda from vending machines that

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You miss the point: it is just another type of advertisment board.

Re:Target audience?

Which brings me to an interesting thought (for which I'm sure my Karma will suffer):

How is the Prez, CIA, NSA or whoever supposed to get FISA warrants for every one of these phones? I mean, if I were a terrorist, I would never make a call from the same phone twice, and never for more than a few minutes per call. Sure, you spend a bit more money, but by the time the Prez gets a FISA warrant, you three or four phones past the one they are listening to.

Just a question I've pondered and would like answered.

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It's quite simple, really. Wipe your ass with the Constitution, throw out 38+ years of precedence, and just monitor every single cash-paid phone sold. (You can't prove it was sold to a citizen, therefore it was de facto sold to a 'terrarist'.) Give Moto

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Ouch. I just reread this and I really should learn to not post while drunk. I'm on the f'cking watch-list for sure, now...

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Its all already done in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

**Yawn** Nothing new here.

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Its all already done in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Phone purchases aren't tracked, but phone-line purchases (mostly pre-paid cards) are.

Robotic Arms

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.

Causing Riots?

If you think people get mad and beat machines because their $0.75 bag of chips got stuck, what do you think the person who just spent $250 on a phone are going to do when it gets stuck? That person is going to beat that machine until they break through th

Here's a twist on iPods

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, $

much better

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.

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That's much better than the prototype I saw, where the robot arm disembowels the customer and spills their entrails all over the linoleum./blockquote
Whiner. What part of "you have 30 seconds to comply" did he not understand?

they found a market for the

prototype you saw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_booth [wikipedia.org]

Fast turnaround!

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!

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I think that says more about the quality of that particular movie than the novelty of the concept...

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Well, true, it is the kind of movie you'd expect to get from a vending machine...

Disposable Phones...

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.

Re:Disposable Phones...

I use "disposable" phones all the time when I travel for pleasure. They're a fantastically useful thing for many purposes, and if they get stolen (NOT an uncommon experience) it isn't like it's a huge loss.

For day-to-day use, yeah, they're a dumb idea. But for certain uses, they're awesome.

The bigger question...

Is if these are being installed in airports, will we be able to take them onto planes in the future?

Re:The bigger question...

No, you will have to use them up before you board the plane. Because, the phones in a vending machine inside the secure area of an airport could hold explosives, like a battery.

Value of phones for sales tax purposes

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.

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The average phone in the US is sold with at a cost of about $300-$500 per user (most of this came from 3 sources: direct hardware subsidies, sales commisssions, and advertising/signups). You used to be able to see this at Nextel, who broke out hardware ch

a vending machine

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.

New meaning

apparently a robotic arm will 'gently deliver' the product to consumers

Let me be the first to say this gives a whole new meaning to "reach out and touch someone"...

Nooooo

That's the handjob machine. You don't want to get these mixed up!

Depersonify

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.

Where will we end up?

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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 Rad

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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 jus

Sexbots.

Sexbots, and the extinction of the human race. It's the only logical solution.

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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.

Here's the thing: interacting with machines is usually more pleasant than interacting with the kinds

What's the point?

This would be great if it truly was an impulse buy. Put money into vending machine, get phone, start using it; Refill as necessary.

But this is no different than the packaged cell phones they sell at Target and other stores -- you still need to go through

Soda vending machine

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

This is a dup article, almost.

Not only has this been around for a while, it was written up on Slashdot. "Get Your iPod Fix From a Vending Machine" [slashdot.org] back in May covered the same vending machine, but loaded up with iPods instead of cell phones.

Easier or harder?

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...

Well...

I bet the terrorists will just love these.

How about travellers?

In Europe the standarts are different. I'm not sure but I think that US has GSM-1900 and GSM-800 and some kind of AMPS (D-AMPS or something like that) while in Europe it's GSM-1800 and GSM-900. If someone flies from Europe on a business trip and discovers

id

more important, when will you need a state issued ID to be able to communicate with them?

How often do you need one?

how often do you need a new phone exactly? I've owned 3 in my life. the first lost its screen over time, the second was stolen. I've had the third maybe 3 years now, and see no reason to upgrade it. It makes phone calls. Job done. Foe everything else phone

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Amazing! That's the combination to my luggage!

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I would find the person who did it and kill them with the Razr. I 3 my Nokia. It makes good phone calls, something I've found lacking in most Motorolas I've experienced lately.