The World of Tomorrow

We mentioned a certain...  Mishap involving one of these a few months ago.

Well, its day has apparently come:

http://hothardware.com/News/Google-Takes-a-Step-Closer-to-Skynet-Wi...

An actual patent filing means the technology is pretty much complete in some form.  Maybe not road-ready form, but still, it exists, which is saying something.  In just a few years, we could have, no doubt Google-made and very strange-looking, self-driving cars filling our highways.  It's going to be the year 2012 in just two weeks...  That was the far future not too long ago.  Remember this?

2015, apparently.  And this?

2019, says Ridley Scott.  Or how about...

2054, for the record.  How did the future of cars go from flying to and fro like Buck Rodgers either in the air or on some futuristic new highway system into having an artificial intelligence drive your otherwise ordinary car for you?  In fact, the only movie we can think of where the future cars did that was... Oh, no.

Yeah, in 2004, by the way.  The old future.  We want our flying cars back.  How about you?  What kind of car do you want parked in your possibly anti-gravity garage 20 years from now?