Since all Wal-Mart stores are set up like a giant warehouse it makes sense that soon there will be robotic Wal-Mart stockers loading shelves. Dont worry your young children are safe inside the cage of the steel or plastic webbing shopping cart. And even if not the robotic shelf loader will indeed sense human presence by way of infrared and body heat, motion detectors and optical flow sensors.

Why is Wal-Mart going to be the first to use robotic shelf stockers? Well with unemployment so low in many parts of the country it makes sense. Also Wal-Mart has the case to fund the Research and Development and they are an obvious user with a much-needed application for such robotic systems.

What will these robots look like anyway? Well they may at first resemble a Star Wars R2D2 although eventually look more humanoid like a C3PO Advanced model. Will this mean less jobs for people? Well there are plenty of jobs in many places and Wal-Mart has trouble in larger cities trying to staff some locations. With unemployment at under 5% and if it gets any less, they will have no choice but to further integrate the future robotic stockers in a store near you. Consider this in 2006.