DC vending machine dispenses books near White House

Photo: https://x.com/LitBoxBooks,November 13, 2025

A vending machine just steps from the White House, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund is fueling minds with local literature, not snacks.

The project, called LitBox, was launched in May by author Lauren Woods to combat what she saw as the hyper-competitive publishing industry’s bias against local authors and smaller presses in Washington, D.C., bookstores.

“I had friends who wrote award-winning books and couldn’t get their books into D.C. bookstores because they were smaller presses,”Woods told NPR, adding the situation “always seemed wrong to me.”

Inspired by a European book vending machine, Woods set up LitBox to market books more equitably. Her experiment appears to be working; the machine, which hosts books by local writers like Diana Rojas and Itoro Bassey, is selling almost as many books from smaller presses as it is from the industry’s “Big Five” publishers.

Woods, who crowdfunded nearly $7,000 for the launch, hopes LitBox will also raise the literary profile of the city.

Danielle Fisher, a market manager for Western Market food hall where LitBox is housed, said the machine has captivated passersby and offers a “special touch” that aligns with featuring local vendors.

Woods hopes to expand LitBox to other locations across the District.

LightTheWorld Giving Machines return to Tucson, Arizona

November 24, 2025

The Light theWorld Giving Machines will one again return to Tucson. The unique “vending machines in reverse” allow residents to buy and donate items like clothing for kids, groceries and job training for the unemployed, according to a KVOA.com report.

The machines have raised nearly $50 million worldwide and will be available at the La Encantada Shopping Center from now through Dec. 9.

State and local charities benefit from the machines.

Steven King to keynote, co-host ARKI 2025: A new era for automated retail and kiosk innovation

Steven King of BlueSky Robotics will co-host and keynote ARKI 2025, exploring how automation and AI are redefining self-service and retail.

October 27, 2025 by Sandra Carpenter — Editor, Networld Media Group

As the self-service and automated retail landscape evolves, so does one of its leading industry events. The Self-Service Innovation Summit is entering a new chapter this December under a new name, ARKI, short for Automated Retail and Kiosk Innovation Show, and a new co-host, Steven King, CEO of BlueSky Robotics and Distinguished Professor of Innovation and Emerging Technology at UNC.

King, who has served on the show’s steering committee since its inception, will take the stage as keynote speaker and co-host of ARKI 2025 in Tampa, Florida. His dual perspective as an academic and as a company leader gives him a unique lens on how automation, robotics and design are shaping the future of customer experience.

“I enjoy the event always. I’ve always enjoyed coming to it and getting to know the people there,” King said in an interview with The Automation and Self-Service Podcast. “Technology is changing very quickly and it’s important that our gatherings and content also change as well. So I think what I’m excited about is that as the industry is changing, so is this conference and so is the content and the people who are invited.”

Expanding the vision

The event’s rebrand from Self-Service Innovation Summit to ARKI reflects the broader scope of automation across industries.

“When we talk about creating good customer experiences, it’s not limited to one particular device or one particular technology,” King said. “As these technologies all grow, they all interconnect with each other. AI is making that so much easier, and so that’s obviously going to be a part of our conversation. But new interfaces, new ways of engaging with customers, all that stuff is interconnected. So to say it’s just a kiosk conference or it’s just an ATM conference or it’s just one of these one technologies we may use, I don’t think that’s actually reflective of what the people who are doing the work are actually doing.”

He added that ARKI gives attendees a space to learn beyond their usual focus. “This conference gives us a chance that we can do this in a way that allows people to explore and find new things they may not have seen,” King said. “They may have been focused on one particular piece of the industry or one particular technology, and then they get exposed to others and they get to ask questions and engage.”

King’s long involvement with the show stems from those same connections. “The reason I have continued to stay involved since the first year I came was I met people that were doing things that I wasn’t doing,” he said. “I met people that I could learn from and that was a really important piece to me as both a professor and as a CEO of a company. Those relationships were really helpful and have led to business for my company.”

Automation in every layer of business

As the head of BlueSky Robotics, King views automation through multiple lenses, from manufacturing to data analytics to the customer experience.

“One thing that we talk about is automation. It’s in the title,” he said. “We think about automation traditionally in manufacturing, in conveyor systems and robots. But we also have back-office automations, a lot around the data analytics and the AI that’s coming, and that’s really growing. But we’ve also got to think about automation when we talk about the customer experience.”

“Our company is really focused on automating and solving problems for people and making good experiences for the end user,” he continued. “So as we look at retail, it’s not just the back-office part. It’s not just the automation. It’s automating the retail experience.”

He added that automation now spans everything from food to physical goods. “We think about automating food, vending stuff, but it can be food, but it can also be something as great as women’s shoes,” King said.

King described how automation allows operators to deliver what customers need in the right place at the right time. “When you’re in an airport, the pharmaceuticals might be what you need,” he said. “You just need something for a headache. Also, Best Buy has their kiosk there at the airport because people want earbuds. We worked with a client who realized that at cruise ports, there’s a great audience for women’s shoes there, and so she has put them in cruise ports.”

Human experience through automation

The balance between automation and human engagement will be a key theme of this year’s content.

“When people talk about ROI and saving because of automation, they are mostly talking about labor savings,” he said. “So we can’t ignore that fact. But the companies that are doing this really well, the brands that are succeeding in this are ones that are choosing to move those people to do better engagement with their end clients, with those customers to enhance that customer experience.”

“At the conference, I have a couple of examples that I’ll be giving in the keynote,” King added. “I watched the robots move and do one thing, which enabled people on the floor to engage with the customers to do something else. That’s a great example that we’ll be sharing at the conference of how you can increase the customer experience by automating and by putting in kiosks and by leveraging technology.”

A conversation-driven event

For King, one of ARKI’s greatest strengths is its collaborative format.

“This is really about bringing people together for conversations,” he said. “You still do get to see technology and what it’s doing and what the options are out there, but it’s more about the executives discussing things together. I’ve learned this, I’ve seen that, that was a really bad idea, that didn’t work well.”

“That’s the value of a conference like this,” King said. “It’s about engaging with people, not just vendors, but operators and the ones who are actually doing the work in the field and engaging with customers and seeing how they’re doing it.”

Looking ahead to Tampa

King said the mix of professional learning and connection is what makes the event special.

“I think we always have fun,” he said. “The one thing that I think that I saw last year was the group just kind of hangs out afterwards. There’s the meet-the-speakers dinner and then afterwards everyone went out for drinks and it continued on. Those are great relationships and a lot of fun.”

He’s also planning to bring some creative elements to this year’s content. “I have grad students right now who are looking for all the worst kiosk interfaces out there,” King said. “That’s literally a job of one of my grad students. So that’s one of those that I’m planning on bringing to the show, as well as great examples.”

Challenges drive vending machine evolution as new ‘automated retailers’ spur revenue and profitability

November 15, 2023

Presented by

In the United States, where vending machines are most prevalent, 100 million people use vending machines every day. They’re buying drinks, snacks and other on-the-go items.

But as times and consumer interests change, so, too, have vending machines. The devices have evolved into what some in the industry refer to as automated retailers, serving as extensions of brick-and-mortar stores with the availability of electronics, books, over-the-counter medication and even clothes – all in an effort to cater to growing consumer demand for convenience, accessibility and product variety.

“This is a way to expand your business and get in front of more people,” said David Ashforth, founder of Digital Media Vending, a leading automated retail solutions firm. “This is a turning point in the vending industry.”