Google's TensorFlow is open source--and it's about to be a huge, huge deal.

Where MapReduce was about generating and processing data sets, TensorFlow is about harnessing them to build "smart" software programs that can do cool stuff. Machine learning already plays a role in applications ranging from Netflix recommendations to your Facebook feed to self-driving cars. In the years to come it will find an even broader range of applications--some ingenious, others inane. Google won't pocket a check when people use TensorFlow to build their own machine-learning software. But rest assured it will find fresh ways to profit from a world in which yet another of its core technologies has become ubiquitous.