Windows 10: HO HO HO Microsoft and Bing Maps help NORAD track Santa

Brink · Dec 17, 2019

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is preparing for their annual tradition of tracking Santa around the globe. As NORAD conducts its primary mission of defending Canadian and United States airspace, they take on the supplementary mission of tracking Santa's journey for the holidays.Much like Santa and his Elves, NORAD gets help from volunteers, partners and Microsoft Employees who will be joining the crew at the Peterson Airforce Base to ensure Santa's safe travels around the globe!

Track Santa on a 3D Map

Working with Cesium, a platform for developers to build web-based 3D map apps, NORAD has built a 3D tracker that displays Santa's whereabouts. The 3D tracker app uses Bing Maps satellite imagery to give a realistic texture to the 3D globe rendered by the CesiumJS library.

For devices that do not support 3D, the app falls back to a 2D map using the Bing Maps API. That map displays a pin marking Santa’s current location for you to follow. You can also learn more about each location Santa visits by clicking on an icon that brings up Wikipedia articles and Santa Cam videos that you can play.

Join the world-wide countdown to the big trip with NORAD, play some games and see Santa's location on a Bing Map by visiting Official NORAD Santa Tracker.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season!

- The Bing Maps Team

To learn more about the NORAD Tracks Santa Program, read their press release.

For details about how Cesium uses Bing Maps to power 3D map apps, read their customer story.

For more information about the Bing Maps platform, go to https:///www.microsoft.com/maps.

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Source: HO HO HO! Microsoft and Bing Maps help NORAD track Santa! | Maps Blog

:)

Brink · Dec 17, 2019

NORAD Tracks Santa and Internet Explorer

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – and Microsoft is excited to be partnering again with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (“NORAD”) to create their annual Santa Tracker web site! A holiday staple for nearly 60 years, NORAD Tracks Santa allows millions of people every year to watch Santa as he makes his annual trip around the globe. This year’s site – built as part of the Internet Explorer campaign to Rethink what the web can be – features a brand new set of games, improved performance, and an optimized mobile experienced, in addition to the ability to track Santa with the help of Bing Maps.

The NORAD Tracks Santa website features a beautiful, inviting landscape in the classic “Claymation” holiday style. The experience is optimized for touch, from the rotatable globe to the parallax-style navigation to the brand new games. On December 24th, when Santa’s journey begins, you will be able to track him on an interactive, 3D globe – featuring a Bing Maps overlay. Additionally, at every stop along the way, users will be able to click off to a specially-curated Bing results page – to get fun facts and beautiful imagery for each location.

In addition, this year’s NORAD Tracks Santa website has been updated to allow Santa Trackers to follow the big man around the globe on their mobile device. The website was built using responsive design – meaning users will get an optimized experience whether they are using PC, tablet, or mobile phone. And because the site was built using modern web standards, like WebGL, it will work across any modern browser, such Internet Explorer 11.

But the fun doesn’t stop there! For the first time, users on Windows Phone will be able to track Santa with Cortana. Cortana will be getting her information straight from NORAD’s advanced systems, to ensure to the most accurate, up-to-date data. Want to see for yourself – try asking Cortana “Where is Santa now?”
Looking for even more holiday fun? Stay tuned for a chance to send your favorite holiday traditions, memories, and wishes to Skype via Video Message and be featured on the website, and other great prizes. Or check out the NORAD Tracks Santa OneDrive page for free downloadable coloring pages and other fun content to keep the kids entertained.

The NORAD Tracks Santa experience is part of the IE team’s Rethink initiative, to create real-world sites that push the limits of what is possible on the web today with a modern browser. Check out some of our other Rethink experiences, including CyArk, Hover, and Everest: Rivers of Ice.

We’re thrilled to have the chance to work with NORAD again to help make the holidays come to life! We hope you and your loved ones have a chance to join us in visiting the NORAD Tracks Santa experience.

Steve Lake

Product Marketing Manager, Internet Explorer
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Brink · Dec 17, 2019

NORAD Tracks Santa 2015 returns for 60th anniversary

Sixty years ago, a mistake in a newspaper ad led to calls to the predecessor of the North American Aerospace Defense Command from children who wanted to talk to Santa. The command center director that day, Col. Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for signs of Santa making his way south from the North Pole and gave kids updates on his location.

It’s a tradition that has evolved to the NORAD Tracks Santa website. This year’s version has added an online holiday-themed coloring book exclusive to Windows 10 and the Microsoft Edge browser, a new image carousel of cities Santa visits and Cortana integration so kids can ask out loud for Santa’s whereabouts.

Millions visit the site every December to track Santa on his global journey, and Microsoft has been the site’s partner since 2013.

“This year we’ve got Bing, Cortana, Microsoft Edge, Windows Maps coming together, and again, Microsoft is partnering with NORAD to bring children and their parents a delightful experience,” says Santanu Basu, senior product manager for Bing marketing. “They’ll discover games throughout December, and then they’ll track Santa on the 24th as he’s going around the world, and discover more about those cities he’s visiting.”

All these moving parts need a powerful host, so the Azure team stepped in to provide support and capacity on a pro-bono basis. The Azure platform provides easy handling of the exponential growth in traffic over a 48-hour period, scaling from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of visitors.

The Microsoft Edge experience is new to the site, and gives kids opportunities to color in a maze, Christmas tree, presents, a wreath, reindeer, bells, snowflakes, snowmen and a sleigh.

“Throughout the year, we can be pretty cynical. But this is one moment where we can see things again through a child’s eyes, and it gives us a fresh sense of wonder,” says Matthew Quinlan, director of product marketing for Bing. “It brings us a new perspective. Technology has brought it right into everyone’s home.”

While the biggest traffic to the site comes within the few days leading to Santa’s big journey on Dec. 24 when the Santa Tracker goes live, there’s plenty to do before then.

If you have a Windows 10 device, your kids will be able to ask Cortana, “Where is Santa?” Cortana will answer back and show visuals of Santa on his annual adventure. Android and iPhone users who have downloaded the Cortana app can do the same. Around Dec 24th Cortana will also provide an automatic update on Santa’s location.

Many people travel in December and explore new places and look up directions on the Windows 10 Maps app. Throughout the month, the Maps app will remind parents to search for Santa’s coordinates – with an autosuggest for “Where is Santa.”

“On Christmas Eve, people really explore the Santa Tracker, but this site is also about the anticipation and buildup to that,” Quinlan says. “This becomes a place where families can visit on a daily basis.”

The NORAD Tracks Santa apps for iOS, Android and Windows 10 are also available, and they have all the same features and functionality as the Web experience, including the tracking starting Christmas Eve. A new open source tool called Manifoldjs allowed NORAD to leverage their Web experience to deliver apps to all the major platforms without the need to write and maintain separate apps.

Explore Santa’s Village to watch movies about Santa and NORAD, listen to favorite holiday music like “Deck the Halls” and “Winter Wonderland,” and visit NORAD HQ, where you can find out more about NORAD and its mission. The latest site redesign also adds more dynamic imagery, such as animated elves on the home page and carols playing across the website.

Families can learn more about St. Nick exploring the library in Santa’s Village, which is packed with information about Santa, his sleigh, holiday activities and “Operation Goodwill,” which connects the site’s fans with people in need. Another section focuses on holiday traditions around the world.

When you click on any of these points on the map, it’ll provide details specific to that country and how its culture celebrates this time of year.

Once Santa’s journey starts on Dec. 24, kids will see hundreds of points on the home page globe that give them more details about many more cities.

“Last year, we put in links where you could see where Santa is, and then click through Bing to find out more,” Quinlan says. “We’ve updated the experience so it’s now got a carousel with some of the major cities so it’s easier to explore, and we’ve got these richer answers in Bing.”

Together the new features create a more immersive experience for visitors to the site, with support from Bing to educate them about the various locales and the tracker. There are also free games such as “Back to Santaland: Christmas is Coming” and “Christmas Friends” in the Arcade section of Santa’s Village.

“We focus on big cultural moments and building an experience that sparks the imagination,” Quinlan says. “The holidays, for us, are one of those great natural moments that bring people together and fuel this sense of wonder. And at no time is that more important than this time of year, with children and families coming together.”

The project also brought together a collaborative effort across the company – Bing, Microsoft Edge, Windows Maps, DX, Cortana and Azure Premier Services.

“NORAD started doing this because of a misprinted ad and 60 years later, it’s become a cultural moment,” Basu says.

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Visit the NORAD Tracks Santa site now, discover your moment of wonder and see what sparks. Children can also call or Skype the hotline at 1-877-HI-NORAD, or email L: noradtrackssanta@outlook.com to get information about Santa’s location.
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Source: He's back! NORAD Tracks Santa returns for 60th anniversary with online coloring book exclusive to Microsoft Edge, new places to explore on Bing and more | News Center

MilesAhead · Dec 17, 2019

NORAD Tracks Santa and Internet Explorer

"It’s the most wonderful time of the year – and Microsoft is excited to be partnering again with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (“NORAD”) to create their annual Santa Tracker web site! A holiday staple for nearly 60 years, NORAD Tracks Santa allows millions of people every year to watch Santa as he makes his annual trip around the globe."

60 years? Must have been about the same time Al Gore invented the internet. *Wink
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Santa's sleigh had a crank on the front back then. No electric starter. That's why he only comes once a year. It took him all year to get the darn thing started. Yeah, the reindeer are just there for pull starts. Once they get to 5 MPH Santa drops the clutch.

Windows 10: HO HO HO Microsoft and Bing Maps help NORAD track Santa

HO HO HO Microsoft and Bing Maps help NORAD track Santa

HO HO HO Microsoft and Bing Maps help NORAD track Santa

HO HO HO Microsoft and Bing Maps help NORAD track Santa

HO HO HO Microsoft and Bing Maps help NORAD track Santa - Similar Threads - Microsoft Bing Maps

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NORAD Tracks Santa 2015 returns for 60th anniversary

NORAD Tracks Santa and Internet Explorer