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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

So you expect me to believe that a vending machine where I can buy a Coke for six quarters that I can also buy an MP3 player for 750 quarters? I am not buying it.

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Some vending machines take credit cards now. Also, what year are you in? These cost $78 on amazon (312 quarters), not $187.50! :)

USPS has postal vending machines both in the office and a couple major supermarkets that eat bills up to $20. Same hardware the self-checkout machines use. Spits out $1 coins as change. So its merely four $20s, or so.

I've seen the same hardware spitting our arduinos and the like at hackerspaces. If you're worried about mechanical damage we have food vending machines at work that operate via locking sliding doors.

It won't take any quarters. NZ has 20c pieces, not 25c pieces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_of_the_New_Zealand_dollar...

I remember seeing an iPhone vending machine at a tech event in SF. This was at the Moscone Center not long after the launch of the second generation though.

SFO had vending machines with various electronics last time I was there.

There are vending machines specifically for selling electronics. You can pay by card.

If you watched the video it was a regular soft drink machine and I didn't see a credit card slot option.

in some places, vending machines accept contactless smart cards, which makes it much easier to pay - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smart_cards

More easy for countries where it is supported everywhere, rather than regionally. But also possible to target vending machines in transit areas, since a lot of public transport has moved over to smart cards.

Don't contactless payments usually have a (low-ish) limit on transaction size?

I didn't mean in this specific video, I just meant that there are vending machines designed specifically for selling electronics.

I watched the video and think I saw the guy putting a single coin in the vending machine to buy this.

Only 188 Susan B. Anthonys/Sacagaweas/Presidential coins. ;)

(the US really needs to get rid of their dollar bill if they expect all these incarnations of the dollar coin to finally catch on)

Vending machines often take credit cards over WiFi nowadays. Don't even get me started about the poor security practice of it all.

Plenty of airports have BestBuy vending machines.

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