I've only been to Japan for a couple of hours, but from what I've heard, the Japanese are big into vending machines. Apparently, there is one vending machine for every 23 Japanese dudes. You can buy almost everything from a vending machine. Food. Water. Ipods. Underwear. Booze. And even good, old-fashioned cigarettes.

And the intelligence of the masses of vending machines is slowly rising. The latest and most greatest vending machine of them all is going to be plopping down on the streets of Tokyo soon: this machine has a face reader in it, that can judge by appearance whether you are old enough to smoke.

Using facial recognition software, the vending machine takes a snapshot of whomever is buying cigarettes, and comes up with a presumed age for the customer. If the customer looks to be younger than 20 years of age, then they will be unable to purchase cigarettes. It is unclear whether or not the machine can be fooled by like, wearing a fake mustache or something. Actually it is unclear if the vending machine will work at all -- nonetheless, they are going to be introduced soon, because of new stricter laws coming into effect that limit the sale of cancer-sticks to minors.

Mr. Yamamoto, a representative of the manufacturer of these machines -- Fujitaka Co. -- was translated as saying: "With face recognition, so long as you have got some change and you are an adult, you can buy cigarettes like before. The problem of minors borrowing [identification] cards to purchase cigarettes could be avoided as well

Japan currently has 570,000 vending machines...that just give out smokes. Isn't that crazy? More than a half-million vending machines just for the tobacco alone. Makes me worry for my Japanese friends. If the intelligence of the vending machines ever raises beyond a certain point, and they achieve sentience, it could lead to the horrible, horrible Great Vending Machine War of 2018 or something like that.