Tokyo's new vending machine gives you free water for a 15-second ad

Would you sit through a short ad for a free drink? In Tokyo, plenty of people already have.

A new kind of vending machine has appeared in the city's Ueno district. It works differently from the usual coin-and-button kind. You watch an ad on the machine's screen for 15 seconds, and then you get a free bottle of water.

Nothing comes out of your pocket. The cost of the water is meant to be covered by advertising revenue, and advertisers get to show their products directly to people on the street.

The idea is to make drinking water easy to get in crowded areas. In its first four days, the Ueno machine handed out 502 bottles.

There is talk of rolling the system out to other places, especially busy pedestrian spots. For now, though, the only confirmed machine is the one in Ueno.

It suggests street vending machines could do more than sell things: they could also give out everyday essentials in exchange for your attention.