I'd love to have most of the things you mention, and some are on their way such self driving cars but there is lots of interesting work out there How about - pranav mistry's sixth sense project - bio printers creating organs with ink jets - combinatorial genomics - google street view (still blows me away to check out a friend's new place in NZ from my couch in Canada) - photosynth - Self replicating 3d printers - open source UAVs/autonomous helicopters

and that's just off the top of my head. I remember being prett impressed by the last 'what are you working on' thread as well. - combinatorial genomics -