A Flying Car?!

Finally: Scientists Working on a Flying Car

We're all aware of just how much real life has failed to live up to our grand, movie-heightened expectations for the future:

Taco Bell is not America's only restaurant; Prisoners are not cryogenically frozen until they can once again be of use to society; We have not replaced toilet paper with seashells. (Okay, those are all from Demolition Man, but that movie was seriously on cable a lot.) But it looks like we may be one step closer to the Hill Valley of 2015: American aircraft-design team Moller International says they are now two years away from a functional flying car. At last! Apparently, the car — dubbed the Autovolantor — will cost about a million dollars, be powered by eight fans, and could fly at altitudes of up to 5,000 feet at 150 miles per hour (we suppose this is reasonable for a first model). But what took so long? Flying cars are the most basic of all sci-fi clichés! We wouldn't be this antsy if science had given us crime-predicting precogs years ago, or if we could take a virtual-reality Mars vacation (two things we figured would've been easy). Also, what's the status on those self-tying sneakers?

New York Magazine