The history of nerds automating their potables goes back a long way, even before claims about who invented the Internet. The latest chapter has been written by the geeks from RedPepper. They have invented Beeri, the first Siri interface for pouring a beer. Or, as its creators say, "the thought leader of beer pouring." This is just the latest dream job for Siri, it seems.
The Rube Goldbergish process goes something like this. Siri is used to text the words "pour me a beer" to Beeri's Twitter account. Meanwhile, the onboard Arduino Uno processor (which we have written about here) is polling this account, and when it sees the command pop up in the Beeri Twitter feed, it sends the remote controlled vehicle crashing into the wall in RedPepper's lab and the beer can is opened and beer collected in the glass. Of course, Beeri 2.0 will figure out a way to do this with a refrigerated can, or to be able to refill the contraption.
Beeri from redpepper on Vimeo.
Beeri is just the latest in a long line of Internet-connected devices that quench thirsty nerds. Of course, back in the day we didn't know from Twitter or use any wimpy Wi-Fi, but had RS-232 serial cables and standard Ethernet over coax. Back in the 1970s, the grad computer science students at Carnegie Mellon connected their department's Coke machine to the Internet so they could "finger" (in the protocol sense, for those of you thinking nasty thoughts) the machine and determine the location of the coldest soda cans. And then there were the grad students at the University of Cambridge UK who connected their coffee pot to the Internet .