A TorrentFreak reader spotted a yellow kiosk in a shopping mall in Ethiopia that looks like an ATM. However, upon closer inspection, you can see that it's not an ATM, but an automated media machine that does everything a video club does... Roughly..
“At the beginning of the current year, All Mart (the equivalent of Walmart in Ethiopia) introduced a new device. It is basically a screen that has a USB port but looks like an ATM. It is called SwiftMedia and there is some type that “maintains it”, reports TF.”.
“Basically as soon as you connect a USB, the screen will activate and allow you to browse a huge library of movies.”
It is unnecessary to say that DRM protection and intellectual property are not on the agenda of this unusual and innovative device.
The prices are very cheap, with packages available for 25, 50 and 100 birr (1, 2 and 3 dollars). The movies cost between 3 and 5 birr (13 to 22 cents), depending on the release date, while older movies cost more. 
“At first I assumed that the machine had the rights to the movies, but later I discovered that the movies were there that day from the release date”, says the TF source.
“Obviously the guy who maintains the machine downloads torrents all day and stores the data on the SwiftMedia disk.”
Naturally, something like that could not last even five minutes in Europe, or in America, and it certainly would never appear in a shopping mall, let alone at Walmart. TorrentFreak contacted Escape Computing, the company that appears to be behind the project, to learn more about their business.
The company did not respond to TF's emails.
