Creeping Technology

Those who fear that mankind is destined to be replaced by machines now have two more reasons for apprehension:

The Joke Box. The usual vending machine too often acts as if designed only to inhale coins; disgorging candy, soft drinks or peanuts seems beyond its capabilities. On an average day in any city, scores of people can be observed speaking harshly to the armless bandits to no avail. Comes now a machine that talks back. It tells jokes.

One-liners are barked in the voice of Henny Youngman, a comedian of Jessel vintage who has taped 230 of his best-worn jokes for the machine's benefit. The vaudevender, once fed with 100, spews out the desired sweet along with one of Kenny's alltime greats. Sample: "Hey! My mother-in-law tried a mudpack treatment on her face, and for two days she looked great. Then the mud fell off."

The device was developed by two Dallas firms, Ussery Industries (guilty of propounding the idea) and Test Equipment Corp. (the accomplice responsible for the technical breakthroughs). Ussery plans to have 5,000 talking machines operating in a few months. If the jokes remain at current levels ("What's the latest dope on Wall Street?'' "My son-in-law."), Ussery's machines risk being brutally abused by infuriated customers --even if the candy bar does show up.

Electronic Barkeep. Men on the working side of a bar are often reputed to have near-occult talents: only the legendary Harry of the Ritz could make the splendid martini; only Emory of Barbados understood the mysteries of rum punch. Now modern technology has provided a substitute: a device marketed by National Cash Register Co. with the drab name of Electra-Bar.

To start Electra-Bar, a human assistant taps the right combination of keys on a cash-register-like machine. Drawing from one or more of eleven bottles, the machine can mix and pour 36 different drinks. It will also dispense straight shots. Electra-Bar is designed to be both quicker and more precise than a human barman. But the major inducement for spending $9,960 to buy the machine is that it enables a bar owner to keep an accurate eye on his profits. In a traditional saloon, dishonest or sloppy bartenders can cut heavily into the day's take. Electra-Bar, which measures with laboratory precision and records amounts and sales automatically, helps keep the bar on the level and in the black.

Electra-Bar is still not as versatile as its human counterpart. Eccentrics who ask for grasshoppers (creme de cacao, green creme de menthe and heavy cream) or the like still must have drinks made by hand. Also, vegetation for martinis must be inserted by the bartender. But tipplers who have sampled Electra's concoctions report they are remarkably uniform in taste, and generally excellent too. The next step, obviously, is a machine that will listen to the barfly's problems and make an appropriately sympathetic reply.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.