Many have been asking, “where is the future?”, and although most of those are bi-spectacled nerds (who we wholeheartedly support), many others are starting to wonder where we went wrong. I mean, where are the flying cars, the stainless steel towers in the sky, the motorized walkways? Apple is starting to take us into the right direction for technophiles and now musicians have the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona to thank for the Reactable, a multi-user electronic music instrument built into a tabletop interface. Imagine if you will, a life-size Elektroplankton! Yeahhhhh. With it, users are able to create complex and dynamic sonic “topologies” (music compositions) by moving physical objects over the table, controlling virtual generators, filters and modulators in a graspable flow-controlled programming language.

Enough techno-bibble babble, take a look at the Reactable in action after the jump..

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Why we’re all not in flying cars yet, I’ll never know, but, I know one thing, if you’re filthy stinking rich you can be. The Moller M400X Skycar prototype, which has demonstrated it’s hovering abilities many times at the Moller facilities is now up for auction via eBay. The Skycar is of course a prototype and can’t really ‘fly’ yet, but, hey, if you’re rich enough to buy it, you should be rich enough to continue developing this amazing piece of aviation history. Current bidding is around the $2 million mark with estimates at $4 million for a final sale and yes, you do have to complete a background check as this thing is most certainly considered a weapon.

Watch video of the M400X hovering after the jump..

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The future is now thanks to IO2 Technologies, a technology firm developing next-generation video displays and interfaces for medical, consumer and (unfortunately) military applications. Most of their products aren’t even available to us little people and one those is called the Heliodisplay. With the Heliodisplay, the user sees a floating image, projected against a nearly invisible plane of air, however these aren’t holographic images. These are pure 2D planar images which appear 3D due to there being no true physical depth reference. The displayed image can also be interactive, meaning a user will eventually be able to use the Helio as a touchscreen display, making this the perfect addition to any evil lair. It’s even built-in to a coffee table, so this fits right at home in any spaceage bachelor’s living room. The quality of the image isn’t quite there yet, with the air causing a slight swaying of the image, but damn if this doesn’t look like the technology I would see in 80′s science fiction films and wish they were real.

Watch a video demonstration of Ritual Entertainment’s SiN Episodes 1 running on the Heliodisplay after the jump..

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Way to go South Korea trying to advance humanity by giving us robotic indentured servants! After announcing in January their intent to begin testing in-home (and school) robotic servants, technicians in South Korea are now begining rollout on the test. From September to December 2006, South Korea plans to test 1,000 mobile-phone controlled robots through homes and kindergartens around the country. Used primarily for cleaning rooms, providing companionship to children(!), and taking care of pets left home alone, all of the robots will be connected via a centralized network, which hopefully give us all a front-row seat into the robotic uprising which would occur shortly after the system goes live. I’ve been unable to find any information on whether they will adhere to Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics and no word on whether any of them will be named Robbie.

[South Korea testing robots in homes]