Coca Cola Freestyle
We bumped into another customization example that should be listed in our archives: the ultimate soda fountain that offers unlimited choice.
Currently, your typical soda fountain in a fast-food joint features perhaps eight to ten standard choices, usually offering nothing more exotic than "peach flavoured ice tea."
These machines work through syrup bags. The restaurant buys a bag from Coke or Pepsi, hooks it up to a soda (water) line and then the fountain combines the carbonated water with the syrup to create your soda. The new Coke machine is completely different.
Coca-Cola has announced that this new soda fountain mixes your personal favourite soda.
The new fountain is like an ink printer with space for hundreds of cartridges. Each cartridge contains a concentrated formula of ingredients. When you press your choice, say a simple Diet Coke, the machine will tell cartridge 12 to release three squirts, cartridge 81 two squirts and so on, then it combines it with carbonated water and you get the same drink as old machines.
The new fountains can hold a lot of these little cartridges, so they can handle a very wide variety of flavours. Coca-Cola promises 120 different drinks, but there could be even more as the technology gets better and the company gets more confident.
You think these are way to many choices for a standard drink like sodas? Think again; Already today, Coca-Cola is listing more than 2,800 beverages on their website!
The first new fountains are rolling out in Atlanta and California in this spring. Assuming tests there go well and the public loves its overwhelming choices, the new fountains would come to other US cities and perhaps Europe next year.
Published on 17-6-2009 - Cool Stuff
