Why sample ladies are headed for extinction

You had a good run, sample ladies. Your ability to slice up frozen pizza or gently stack potato chips in the mini paper cups will not be forgotten. However, the window on your ability to bring bites of meatballs to wholesale club members may be closing rapidly.

Gizmodo brings news of the latest vending machine being test-marketed in Japan, and it’s basically a robotic sample lady. A customer can hold up a product’s bar code and the machine will spit out a sample for the customer to try.