Bill Gates was in the news again this week, with a fresh raft of revelations. He put out word that he's thinking of stepping down from operations management at Microsoft, and donning the mantle of chief technologist for the company.

Bill wants to enjoy life more, and be known less for his wealth than for his guru status. To kick off the change, he predicted that cars are going to go even more high-tech.

"All computers in the future will be able to see, speak, listen and learn," he said. Microsoft engineers are already busy working on something called the Auto PC that will "hear" spoken commands from a driver and launch navigation aids, control the air conditioning, and even tune the radio.

Got that? Your car will have a computer like the one on the Starship Enterprise, that is always listening, and obeys your every command.

Presumably, the Auto PC will also control the car TV. "Computer, show me Deep Space 9."

I was watching the league championship series on TV when I saw an ad for the Oldsmobile Silhouette Premiere minivan. The car features a 5.6-inch color TV that flips down from the ceiling.

The ad stipulates that the TV is not for the driver. It is tilted so that only people in the back seats can watch. Kids can watch a video of Barney during long trips. Nice.

If you already have a minivan, you can have it retrofitted with an auto entertainment center. The SaddleView TV, available from Texas Saddlebags (www.saddlebags.com) for $700, comes with a 9-inch color television monitor, a videocassette player and headphones. It even has its own TV remote control.

Does anyone else see a problem with this? I shouldn't have to remind anyone that this is America, where everyone expects to be entertained, including designated drivers.

At first parents will just eavesdrop on the audio. Soon they will have the remote in their shifting hand, flipping from One Life to Live to Montel to CSPAN impeachment hearings as traffic whips through the Interchange. The kids will be crying for their purple friend, but it will be too late -- the car TV has been reengineered, crammed into the glove compartment so Mom and/or Dad can watch while they drive.

And if it's TV today, tomorrow it will be interactive TV, so you can buy cubic zirconia from the captain's deck. And the day after it will be a complete Internet connection, an info-cosmos where your road atlas and flares used to be.

Do you see where this is going?

Already a third of all people on the road seem to be involved in cell phone conversations during drive time.

As we queue up alongside one another on the metered onramp, a part of me envies them. They look so vital and engaged, phoning ahead to inform people of their ETA, or buying stock, or ordering Chinese. I, unless my rear-view mirror lies, appear slack-jawed, un-air-conditioned, and awaiting the sweet release of death.

But at least I'm watching the road. People on the phone are sort of watching. People in Silhouette Premieres? They're watching the freaking TV!

Ands that's just it. The difference between telephones and television is hinted at in the root word -vision. You look at television. And while it's no skin off my nose if kids in the backseat are watching Barney, it's acres of skin off my whole family if we look up and see an oncoming car with the driver staring at the dashboard, the expression on his face the visual analog to a laugh track.

We'll give the guru the second-to-last word:

"We really are at the beginning of something quite incredible," Gates told students at Indiana University. "I expect more changes with technology in the next 10 years than I've seen in the last 25."

Fine. But as requisition officer of the Future Shoes Commissary, charged with the task of equipping people for the rough and tumble years just ahead, I'm not keeping any Silhouette Premieres in stock. You want one, you buy one from Oldsmobile.

And thank Bill Gates for the great new advance. That will be him, streaking homeward in his private jet, thinking big thoughts as smoke billows from the blue highways below.

America's Best-Loved Futurist (TM), Michael Finley operates the Future Shoes Commissary at http://mfinley.com.