Beyond self-service checkout at the store

Ripped from the headlines from the Washington Post: the latest technologies that help retailers to be more productive and more efficient (ok, to put it more bluntly, to reduce costs), being shown at the annual convention of the National Retail Federation. This link for the article (free registration required)

Among the novelties: a cart that downloads shopping lists and warns customers when you pass a shelf that has one of the wanted items, and videoconferencing terminals at the aisles that allow shoppers to contact an outsourced worker -at a remote contact center- when they need help and cannot find someone at the store.

Obviously, some of these technologies are still being tested.

How many more months until the Wal-Mart greeter is a computer terminal with a camera on top?