Creativity 50 2010: Blaise Agüera y Arcas

Imagine Google Street View overlaid with an entire internet's worth of geo-tagged Flickr photos, or an on-the-ground map that takes you inside to look up, down and around public places. That's what Blaise Agüera y Arcas is realizing for Microsoft as the mastermind behind Bing Maps. Mr. Agüera y Arcas joined Microsoft in 2006 and is also co-creator of Photosynth, software that stitches individual photos together into 360-degree panoramas. Now as architect of Bing Maps, he hopes to take web maps far beyond a tool for driving directions. His team is trying to use geography to display all manner of information, like tweets in your area plotted on a map or the nearest instance of graffiti. In fact, Mr. Agüera y Arcas doesn't necessarily think "mapping" is even the right word for what his team is doing. "It's a way of extending your senses so you can see yourself from the air, see your environment and what's around the corner."

See the rest of the 2010 Creativity 50 here.