Seeing as how it's never really going to be the future until people can fly around with their own personal jetpacks, this seems like a historical landmark of sorts:
The accompanying AP story piles on all sorts of pesky caveats: The Swiss pilot, Yves Rossy (known as the "Fusion Man"), had to first leap out of a plane in order to fly the thing around. He can't land it, either, not without a parachute. And he has to wear fireproof pants. Still, he's doing somersaults in midair, high above the Alps... in a jetpack. What more can you ask for? (And, yes, Rossy was almost killed testing an earlier prototype...)
--Bradford Plumer