“In the past decade, we have witnessed astonishing innovations in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, in nanotechnology, in the ways fossil fuels are extracted and refined, in food production and precision-manufacturing technology, and in just about every other category of human enterprise upon which human creativity has been focused,” Bob Evans writes for Forbes. “But in spite of the fact that I myself am intransigently (if not tragically) un-hip, I want to limit my choices to two dazzlers that I think are the Coolest Products of the Decade.”
“One of them is a household word—in fact, a household phenomenon,” Evans writes. “The other won’t be found in any households — or will it?? — and today remains somewhat obscure, but in 2012 it will blast into much broader awareness and reshape the entire competitive marketplace in which it operates.”
Evans writes, “From Apple, we have, of course, the iPhone and the iPad, which have revolutionized how hundreds of millions of people communicate, create, consume, share, explain, convince, and decide… My other Coolest Product of the Decade is a soda dispenser. More accurately, a beverage dispenser. I know, I know, you’re tempted to stop reading right now and are probably feeling a bit sorry for this old frump who’s life is so boring that he finds soda dispensers to be cool!”
“But bear with me—because this soda dispenser is no more just another soda dispenser than the iPhone is just another phone,” Evans writes. “The Coca-Cola Freestyle soda dispenser turns the entire drink experience upside-down and inside-out.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
That soda dispenser’s not perfect. It picks up the flavor of the last drink dispensed so you never get the pure taste of the drink you select. It’s cool but needs improvement.
Really? You’ve used one?
——RM
Yeah. It’s cool, but the flavors get crossed.
I’ve used one as well. A sub chain called Firehouse Grill has them in my area. It’s pretty awesome, but he’s right, it does blend the flavors. It’s easy enough to avoid though, just dispense some water first to wash out the previous flavor.
The drink machine he describes sounds like the new ones that they installed in Fudruckers. One machine dispenses a wide variety of drinks plus extra flavorings such as cherry. The drawback is that it takes consumers more time to work through the additional choices and get a drink. The result at Fudruckers was a long wait for a drink.
The machine should use a little water to purge the residual drink from the last order.
I know about that pop machine they’re talking about — I saw it on TV — and I totally want to use one. The moment Burger King installs those things, I’mma get me a burger and a soda.
——RM
They’ve got them @ fudruckers. Go there.
People may prefer the taste of Pepsi, but you can’t beat them Apples!
This is the dumbest article I’ve read all day. Comparing the iPad and iPhone to a machine that mixes corn syrup? Lol…is this a joke? Seriously…is this a joke?
Perhaps “IRONIC” ?
🙂
“Do you want to dispense sugar water for the rest of your life, or come with me and change the world?”
It’s now “make or put a ding in the Universe”. Did I say that correctly?
“The Coolest Products of the Decade are from Apple and Coca-Cola”
It’s a fact that warm Coca-Cola is not cool.
how is poison sugar water cool?
Depends on who you want to poison 😉
Apple is a company that is famous and at the same time infamous for not offering many choices.
Coca Cola’s freestyle goes in the opposite direction and offers many choices where previously there were few.
Personally I would rather have the option of choosing from a small number of great choices than from an artificially inflated number of poor choices.