Samsung Announces Diji-Touch Touchscreen Vending Machines [Giant LCD Screens Finally Combine TV and Junk Food]

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Vending machines are ubiquitous. It seems like everywhere you look you’re being offered something to eat or drink from one of these metal monsters. There is also something comforting about these dietary dispensers. The sound of your money clinking down the slot, the rotating display as your Mars Bar travels down the final leg of the metal spring toward the bottom with the off chance that it might get stuck right before it drops. It’s just a bit cathartic. Well, if the folks at Samsung have their way, the entire vending machine experience is set to change with their new Diji-Touch.

Earlier this year at the CES show in Las Vegas, Samsung announced that it had partnered with Kraft foods to develop the next-generation snack vending machine, the Diji-Touch. The new units come complete with a 46-in LCD touchscreen that takes the place of the traditional glass panel display case found on most machines today. You simply touch the picture of the food you want and viola. They’re also connected to the Internet for some reason. Maybe you can catch a flick while you wait. Clearly this is a way for Samsung to sell more LCD units (which generated 14% of the firm’s $21.4 billion first-quarter revenue in 2009) and another means for Kraft foods to promote its line of snacks to a new, tech-savvy generation.

The machines not only look good, but they are educational as well. The touchscreens enable the customer to view nutritional information on the items within helping them to make more intelligent snack choices in the process. I’m not sure if I really want diet advice when I’m hunting for a snack, but I can see where they’re going. I wonder if these things come with a graphic you can touch that will virtually shake the machine just for old time’s sake? The Diji-Touch vending machines are set for a market test sometime in the latter half of 2009 with wider availability sometime in early 2010, so keep your eyes open the next time you happen to be in an airport.

Special thanks to www.ChipChick.com for the killer pic of the Diji-Touch in action.