Zipwhip’s robotic Barista prints personalized messages on coffee’s froth

Won’t you love the idea of getting a mug of coffee on an SMS? Seattle based cloud message service provider Zipwhip has cunningly produced a coffee maker called the Textspresso that will hand out your coffee on your request via a text message from your handset. The machine also prints personalized messages on the froth of your coffee with an edible ink. Well, Zipwhip touts the Textspresso as the world’s first text-enabled robotic Barista coffee maker.

Textspresso robotic barista coffee maker

Zipwhip has actually developed the robotic Barista to promote its business in cloud messaging. The firm has no plans to produce the machine commercially. However, Zipwhip has publicized source code and instructions of the Barista. It is really a standard coffee maker produced by Jura, but is activated with a specially programmed Arduino micro-controller. The system can be controlled from your handsets using Zipwhip’s Android application.

As per Zipwhip’s CEO John Lauer, the Textspresso project was shaped up as a creative product, rather than a commercial product. It was made with lots of “head-scratching and weekend work”, he says. The company has posted code of the system in Java programming language on its web site. Any enthusiastic developer can copy it and produce a similar machine, the company added.

Talking to the BBC, Mr. Lauer hoped that if Starbucks could admire the product and acquire the company for this robotic Barista. Anyway, it might be a great tool for a firm like Starbucks that can delight its customers with personalized messages in coffee. Zipwhip says it will be glad if someone adopts its open source plan and builds the robotic coffee machine.

Via: BBC