Like it or not, autonomous cars are here -- almost

One of the odder things about living in "the future" is that things develop so gradually, hardly any of the really amazing things we're exposed to every day seem amazing or futuristic.

If the iPhone had just appeared from nowhere in 2007, there would have been riots, demonstrations and legislation. But since we had a Blackberry first, and dedicated cellphones before that, the iPhone and its progeny were never quite shocking.

Arriving at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Google have produced driverless cars that have crossed deserts and covered thousands of miles of public roads. Stanford's autonomous Audi TTS has been lapping

By Rory Carroll