If you're planning on tracking Santa this year using the North American Aerospace Defense Command tracker, expect some changes. NORAD revealed this week that they will be using Microsoft Bing this year to help people follow St. Nick as he makes his way around the world delivering presents to those who've been good.
Click here to go to the NORAD Santa Track homepage.
Google has been in partnership with NORAD the past five years, but announced this week that they will launch their own Santa tracker app for 2012. The spilt was reached mutually according to a spokesman for Google.
The app will be available through Android according to Google, as well as online through the official Google Santa Tracker website that will follow Santa as he makes his way around the world on Dec. 24.
"While we've been tracking Santa since 2004 with Google Earth, this year a team of dedicated Google Maps engineers built a new route algorithm to chart Santa's journey around the world on Christmas Eve," VP of Google Maps and Google Earth, Brian McClendon, said on his blog post. "On his sleigh, arguably the fastest airborne vehicle in the world, Santa whips from city to city delivering presents to millions of homes."
Click here to view the Google Santa tracker app starting at 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve.
Google Maps also plans on posting the latest Santa updates through its Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages, and Google users can also chat with Santa online as well.
Approximately 25 million people will use the NORAD Santa tracking site next week, which will now run purely on Windows Azure cloud-computing platform and Bing Maps according to Computerworld. NORAD has been tracking Santa for the last 62 years, well before the internet was even created. NORAD gets around 102,000 phones calls and 7,700 emails from children all-around the world on Christmas eve.
"Every December 24 since 1955 we have been telling children exactly where Santa is so that children all over the world can make sure that they're in bed on time so that Santa will deliver their presents," deputy chief at NORAD Stacey Knott said to Reuters.
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