Who is the computer company working with LH et al. on these machines? IBM works with AC on their check-in kiosks and they are quite sweet and good. They let you upgrade and choose a seat, print onward BPs etc. The only thing you cannot do is print the luggage tags and affix them yourself -- probably a good thing since I'm sure some people would bring bags of rocks and just throw them on the belt and then file a claim at their destination. *shrug* (Not that I would do that!)
And security was less than five minutes last Thursday at LHR -- or maybe security is just fast at 0640? Of course, the line up looked awfully scary!