With Tally the robot, scanning shop aisles has new meaning

Washington

AS LONG as consumers love low prices, a trend will continue: the evaporation of the human employee.

On Tuesday, a Silicon Valley startup unveiled Tally, a robot designed to help retailers track shelves far better than a human employee could. Robots such as Tally can't do everything a person can, but they offer a reminder of how machines increasingly excel at roles long held by humans.