Vending machines, especially when deployed in the variety and scale they are in Japan, offer and effective push-button shopping alternative. But society evolves and retail practices with it, so now for those occasions when the idea of pressing buttons on a vending machine is just too much to bear, Asahi drinks has produced a WI-FI enabled vending machine.

But offering a simple wireless connection to a Wi-Fi enabled device to aid with product selection is only part of the genius. Each of the Asahi drinks machines will also act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing a number of devices to get online at the same time, for up to 30 minutes each. The vending machine's home page will offer links to product details and local area information. Currently there are 1,000 machines to be rolled out over the coming year. 

Spotted on Japantrends.com