This vending machine in France dispenses short stories instead of snacks

By Lulu Chang Published October 26, 2015

It may not provide food for the stomach, but if you’re seeking sustenance for the soul, this vending machine is the answer to all your prayers. Rather than dispensing sodas like traditional vending machines, or french fries like some new-fangled European kiosks, the Short Edition machines in Grenoble, France, will print out little vignettes for you to enjoy on the go.

At the behest of avant-garde Green Party member, Mayor Eric Piolle, eight of these innovative orange stands will be placed throughout the city center for the literary pleasure of Grenoble residents and visitors. All stories will be printed free of charge and readers can choose whether they’d prefer one, three, or five-minute stories.

Recommended Videos

“The idea came to us in front of a vending machine containing chocolate bars and drinks,” Christophe Sibieude, a digital publisher responsible for the concept, told the AFP. “We said to ourselves that we could do the same thing with good quality popular literature to occupy these little unproductive moments.” Sibieude’s Short Edition app, which boasts over 140,000 subscribers, powers the vending machines with users themselves creating content for the printouts.

But Sibieude credits the mayor with the ultimate vision to bring the vending machine idea to life. “We are trying to re-imagine the city center as a place of shared experiences,” Piolle said in an AFP interview. “We are trying to launch a revolution, and the objective is to build a wider and calmer downtown area.” And getting people to read (and not on their smartphones), may be the first step towards realizing this goal.

While the Short Edition vending machines are currently available only in Grenoble, the team has high hopes for the future of the technology. “We are getting a lot of requests from all over the world for this invention,” Short Edition co-founder Quentin Pleple told RT. “Once we sort out our costs, we will ship these machines anywhere – for maybe a month, several months or even for a few years.”

So get ready to order yourself a bite-sized story from a vending machine, friends. They just may be coming to a town near you.

Former Contributor

Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…

Topics

Emerging Tech

ChatGPT Pro replaced Gemini Notebook as my favorite research app, and I didn’t see it coming

Electronics, Phone, Mobile Phone

I've been using Gemini Notebook ever since it launched, and for the longest time, it was my go-to app for just about everything. Whether I was researching a topic, organizing work, or studying something new, it became one of those apps I instinctively opened without thinking. When Google kept adding new features, I genuinely believed it had secured a permanent spot in my workflow.

Then, almost without realizing it, ChatGPT Pro took over. I've been using its Work mode for a while now, and somewhere along the way, it replaced Gemini Notebook. Of course, it wasn't an overnight switch. I kept bouncing between the two for weeks, but I gradually found myself reaching for ChatGPT every single time instead. At some point, I realized I hadn't opened Gemini Notebook in days. Now, I honestly don't use it at all.

Emerging Tech

AI chatbots will happily create fake news articles, and tests show ChatGPT is the worst at it

Electronics, Phone, Mobile Phone

The biggest AI chatbots are supposed to help people find information, not manufacture misinformation. But a new investigation suggests that separating those two jobs isn't as straightforward as many AI companies would like users to believe. A series of tests found that several leading AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Meta AI, could be persuaded to generate fake news stories, fabricated headlines, and even realistic-looking screenshots of well-known media outlets. While every chatbot showed some weaknesses, ChatGPT reportedly performed the worst, producing the most convincing fake content with surprisingly little effort.

The findings come from an investigation by German newsroom CORRECTIV, which tested how the AI assistants responded when asked to create false reports involving sensitive topics such as election fraud, government coups, war, vaccines, climate change, and conspiracy theories.

Emerging Tech

DeepSeek just slashed AI prices again, and China’s AI race is getting even messier

DeepSeek AI chatbot running on an iPhone.

China's AI race has never really been short on competition, but it's increasingly looking like a battle over who can charge the least rather than who can build the best model.

DeepSeek has unveiled its latest open-weight AI model, called V4-Flash, alongside a dramatic price reduction that makes it significantly cheaper for developers to use. The company has cut token pricing by 50% and has also decided against introducing a previously announced dynamic pricing system that would have increased costs during periods of heavy demand. The new changes paint a clear picture: DeepSeek appears more interested in winning over developers and expanding its user base than maximizing revenue in the short term.