Smart vending machines are only nominally interested in your coins–even your bitcoins. What they really want is the true coin of the realm, the most valuable currency of the day: information. We aren’t the children of Marx and Coca-Cola but of Orwell and Red Bull. The opening of an Avram Piltch NBC News piece:

“Just how well does your office soda machine know you? A network of smart, connected vending machines will soon use facial recognition, NFC and a membership program to market and sell everything from food to electronics on their giant touch screens. The product of software giant SAP, these new high-tech machines will also use cloud technology and data analysis to make sure they stay stocked with your favorite drink and get repaired as soon as they break.

SAP Senior Director Carston Kress showed us a sample machine, which had a giant color touch screen in lieu of a window. The display had a rotating animation of snack items (sodas, candy bars, etc) on top of a lime green background. The top of the machine also had a camera, which it uses for facial recognition in order to see who it’s marketing to.

‘For example, you have a group of people like us, three men and a woman,’ Kress said. ‘This would be recognized by the machine and it can now drive a personalized campaign to the audience that stands in front of it.'”