NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook recently aired a podcast on the Next Generation of Maps. Ashbrook introduces the segment with a sentimental look at old schools maps, the kind you would stop alongside the road to spread over the hood of the car should you lose your way. Today, he said, "Maps can now surround you like a digital coccoon," and people rarely get lost.

The podcasts include guests Steven Levy, a senior writer from Wired and author of "In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives," Darin Jensen, a cartographer and geography professor at UC Berkeley, and David Heyman, a cartographer and co-founder of Axis Maps.

The hour features what NPR has dubbed "cartography on digital steroids," maps loaded with terabytes of data, and 3D maps you can zoom over, zoom into, and walk through.  It also includes a look at how Google and Apple are set to square off over the next great mapping frontier.

The segment also includes Ashbrook's reading list and a video demo of the Google Glasses project.