An augmented gumball machine with a Servo Phidget controls the dispensing of the candy. The gumball machine is networked and provides the ability to automatically control it from a personal Web page. Every visit to the Web page is regarded as an I-thought. I-thoughts are then translated into a physical token of affection. When a customizable number of people visit the Web site, five for the experiments, the machine dispenses a gumball to inform the owner of the Web page of these I-thoughts. Each Web visit is logged storing the IP address and the city where the Web surfer is located. The IP address and the physical location of the most recent visits to the Web page are shown to allow the remote Web visitor to know that her visit has been logged. Because every fifth visit dispenses a gumball, the viewer can also determine if her act dispensed candy.
Source: Truong, K. N., Richter, H., Hayes, G. R., and Abowd, G. D. 2004. Devices for sharing thoughts and affection at a distance. In Extended Abstracts of the Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems (CHI’04). ACM Press, 1203–1206.
