Alexsis Madrigal offers an inside look at what Google is doing with Maps and all those Streetview photos they’ve amassed. It’s jaw-dropping in its scope and audacity — and in its implications for the future:

“…as my friend and sci-fi novelist Robin Sloan put it to me, “I maintain that this is Google’s core asset. In 50 years, Google will be the self-driving car company (powered by this deep map of the world) and, oh, P.S. they still have a search engine somewhere.”

Read the article.