Great article about the history of cocktail robotics. With a shout-out for Roboexotica.
The first Golden Age of the automated potationist was the 1950s: In The Stars My Destination,
the novelist Alfred Bester introduced a robot who served both cognac
and epiphanies; in France, there debuted a model that resembled a gas
pump and modulated the potency of your Martini according to its
assessment of your drinking capacity. Charting the evolution of the
robot bartender forward from the ’50s is akin to tracing the history of
software technology. In 1973, early adopters were slipping in a punch
card and then sipping Planter’s Punch. In 1984, they were knocking back
vodka tonics with the aid of laser-disc software. In 2013, Google
convention-goers downloaded to their phones a Makr Shakr app. In a
perfect reflection of the ethos of the social Web, the app
simultaneously enabled drinkers to express micro-specific personal
preferences and encouraged them to create “crowd-sourced drink
combinations” (which I’m guessing all turned out like Long Island Iced
Teas). Where do we go from here?Vienna. December will bring the 15th installment of Roboexotica, a “festival für cocktail-robotik”
constituting a cyberpunk prelude to the ball season and a neo-Dadaist’s
idea of a tech conference. Founded in 1999, the festival encourages
semi-serious discourse on “the role of Cocktail Robotics as an index for
the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt”
and documents “the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in
man-machine communication.” I don’t know anything about the leading
contenders for Roboexotica’s Annual Cocktail Robots Awards. But I am
sure that in 2013 we are far, far away from that era when some cantinas
wouldn’t even allow droids to enter.