But with optional features like racing-inspired paddle shifters, blind-spot detection, adaptive cruise control and massaging seats, the price escalates quickly.

FORBES: Ford's New $45,000 Taurus

Ford's prototype system aims to lessen distraction by taking readouts from biometric sensors and combining the data with information from the car, including speed, steering-wheel angle, and data from radar sensors or cameras used in blind-spot obstacle detection or cruise control.

WSJ: Designing a Car That Takes Your Pulse, Senses If You're Ill

In America there is already a military system to spot GPS interference: the GPS Jammer Detection and Location (JLOC) system run by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

ECONOMIST: GPS jamming

With the suitably mysterious name of "Project 1640, " the new instrument is the first of its kind that's able to directly spot planets orbiting distant suns -- as opposed to existing systems that use indirect detection methods to determine the orbit of exoplanets.

ENGADGET: Project 1640 offers new way to search for planets beyond our solar system