Cupcake ATM

Sprinkles Cupcakes, the Beverly Hills-based establishment that bills itself "The Original Cupcake Bakery," has just launched a new salvo in the war for sweets supremacy. Sprinkles has created the world's first cupcake ATM: a machine designed to dispense the company's treats 24 hours a day.

The machine is stocked every evening with hundreds of freshly baked cupcakes, and a mechanical arm is used to dispense them, boxed, to the customer, who chooses which type of cupcake and pays via a touch-screen interface. Bakery founder and owner Candace Nelson says the concept was born when she could not satisfy her own late-night cravings when she was pregnant.

The same type of machine will be installed at Sprinkles' New York City location this summer, Nelson says.