Flavor fave

Coke is IT - using information technology in new test vending machines that let customers pick their drinks based on calories, caffeine content or just color through a touchscreen.

Coca-Cola Freestyles will dispense customizable soft drinks available from nearly 150 flavors, storing the favorite choices of the thirst-quenched masses. Peach Coke? Blueberry Sprite? Go for it. People will even be able to tweak their choices to strike the perfect palatable balance.

These new Freestyles will send the info back to the Coke mothership, telling them what flavors are faves, when people are buying, how much their imbibing and what locations are seeing the most traffic. The Coke heads can even stop any flavor from being dispensed (presumably from some discreet red button under a desk).

But don't go thinking you'll be able to make a movie-theater-style Suicide like a Grape Fanta, Coke Zero with a spritz of Sprite. New technology apparently has only come so far.