Chances are, if you've been to an airport in the past 5 years or so, you've seen one of these little touch-screen devices that you can use to check in for a flight. You feed it the appropriate information and you have a printed boarding pass in no time!

Well, the folks at Alaska Airlines are calling this "the airport of the future." There was a recent news story that Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac) has replaced the conventional ticket counter with these touch screens. Sure, there is staff there to help you in case you can't navigate the touch-screen, as well as to ensure any checked luggage gets tagged and sent down the line.

Of course, Alaska isn't the only airline to do this. Half of the united airlines counter at Sea-Tac is done this way, e.g. with touch screens at the ticket counters and staff there to help and to help with checking bags.