All this for a new kind of vending machine?

A person, described as an 'inventor', has dreamed up the idea of selling alcoholic beverages by machine. My initial vision, when I heard about this, was that it would be some really sophisticated kind of device which would, for example, pull the beer pump and get just the right depth of froth on the top (or not, depending in what part of the country you reside) and respond appropriately when the punter receives his drink and says something along the lines of "nice one, mate!". What it is, in fact, is a pretty standard kind of vending machine for pre-packaged merchandise (like bars of chocolate or bags of potato crisps/chips) with, according to the story, some kind of smooth gearing that will prevent the liquid content from being shaken during delivery. Wow! What it may do though is allow pub-owners to reduce the quantity of bar-staff they need to employ and the costs involved; being the cynic I am, I can see the attraction of that to the bottom-line. There's also the possibility, I suppose, that not having quite so many human drinks-dispensers (aka bar-staff) on the premises will make it easier for the smoking lobby to resist efforts to ban smoking in pubs.