In South Africa, getting a little liquid refreshment can be as simple as sending a tweet, thanks to what appears to be the world's first Twitter-activated vending machine. The machine is named BEV, and last week she started rewarding people at Cape Town's Wembley Square who tweet the right hash tag with a sample of BOS Iced Tea.
The machine will be handing out free tea as part of a special promotion through the end of this week. BEV's display will tell you what hash tag you need to tweet from your mobile device to get your complimentary refreshment.
BEV stands ready to deliver tea for tweets in Cape Town
BEV scans Twitter's API for the right hash tag
BEV also checks the geolocation tag of each tweet with the correct hash tag
BEV displays the handle of each free tea recipient
BEV will be handing out tea for the rest of the week
You'll need to be sure to make sure your Twitter app is able to access your location, however, because BEV will check it to make sure you're actually nearby before handing over the goods.
BEV's potential extends just beyond handing out samples and doing some basic social media marketing. It made its debut at the Design Indaba Expo in Cape Town earlier this year, where she showed off some of her other features, including her cameras, microphone, trigger switches and sound-activated LEDs that add a dash of personality to this tweet-reading machine. Let's just hope that surveillance isn't also one of BEV's built-in functions.
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