Mapping the world in 3D will let us paint streets with augmented reality

If you believe tech optimists, 10 years from now self-driving cars will be ubiquitous, drones will deliver our parcels, and robots will bring us our groceries. And one day soon, our cities will be painted with augmented reality that feels as if it belongs to the street corner where it was placed. Whether or not any of that comes to pass, one piece of the puzzle will be crucial to this future: ultra-precise location technology. GPS and the wandering blue dot on smartphone mapping apps are useful for a human navigating an unfamiliar city, but that just won't cut it for machines. They will need to know where things are down to the centimeter. London-based startup Scape reckons that's what it can provide.