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Google's Santa hub has you taking 'elfies' around the world
Google has brought back Santa's Village for another year, and this time it's particularly trendy. Fire up the Santa Tracker app on your Android phone and you can play Santa Snap, a game that has you flying around Google Maps to take "elfies" at famous landmarks around the world. Basically, it's Amélie with Santa's helpers in place of gnomes. Other activities will pop up daily between now and December 24th, including a equally of-the-moment AI drawing game (a festive take on Quick, Draw), an elf dance coding game and a virtual snowball fight.
Santa's village comes to life as Google's holiday tracker goes online
Now that Thanksgiving is complete and the holidays are officially upon us, Google has unveiled a new and expanded Santa's Village for 2016. The dedicated website is part of the company's annual Santa Tracker app promotion. This year, visitors will have plenty to do including learn about various charitable organizations while coloring in digital ornaments, play games, discover holiday traditions from around the world -- even learn a bit of basic coding. More features will unlock daily as we get closer to Christmas.
Google open-sources its Santa Tracker a few months late
Google might want to improve its timing a bit. You see, the search giant has released the source code for its Santa Tracker apps... in April. In other words, right when the snow has finished melting in many corners of the world. That's a little too late (or alternately, too soon) to help create holiday apps, Google. As you might gather, though, the festive theme is beside the point. The open source content is really meant to show how the folks in Mountain View make a lively website that works on everything from phones to desktops, not to mention a host of Android games and smartwatch faces. Hopefully, you'll see at least a few apps and sites in the near future that have an extra amount of polish, whether or not Kris Kringle is involved.
Monitor Santa's pre-flight prep with a little help from Google
If you're looking to keep an eye on ol' St. Nick ahead of his annual journey, Google can lend a hand. This year's version of Mountain View's Santa Tracker is live and ready to help keep tabs on all the prep work. Up until the red-clad fellow departs later this month, games and scenes will be added to his village regularly -- including location-specific bits so you can read up on traditions in other places. Of course, on December 24th, you'll be able to follow Mr. Kringle's globetrotting in real time. If you happen to be away from a computer, monitor the latest happenings via Android app, mobile site or on your Chromecast-equipped TV.
Google improves its Santa tracking with a Chromecast-ready Android app (video)
Microsoft may have NORAD's blessing for its Santa Claus monitoring, but Google has a few tricks of its own this year. The search giant's latest Santa Tracker centers on an updated Android app (launching mid-December) with Chromecast TV streaming support -- you'll soon get to follow St. Nick from the comfort of your living room. If you'd prefer to keep tabs on him from the web, the company is promising both daily game and scene updates as well as a refreshed Chrome extension. Head to the source links if you'd like to explore Google's take on the Christmas spirit.
A visit to NORAD's Santa-tracking facility (video)
Few things in this world will reaffirm your holiday spirit faster than watching a dozen or so uniformed service people cover a room in Christmas wrapping. Also on that short list, it so happens, is spotting one of the aforementioned troops hand-feed an overzealous and noticeably plump squirrel who's anxiously scratching on the door to get in. It's a strangely Snow White-esque moment that unfolds minutes after we set up our gear in the conference room of the Leadership Development Center -- a drab, unassuming office space in the middle of Colorado Springs' Peterson Air Force Base that serves as a training facility for 11 months out of the year. But now, in early December, there's a transformation occurring, as men and women in various shades of camouflage paper the space with Christmas spirit in record time. For one month a year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) converts this area into holiday central for NORAD's Santa Tracker, a half-century-old program that has become a thing of legend -- a curious juxtaposition of warfare preparedness and storybook magic. It's one that, somehow fittingly, is rooted in a mistake -- a phone number misprinted in a 1955 Sears catalog, prompting local children to call Santa's "private number." Those calls from excited boys and girls were routed, the legend goes, to the big red phone in the war room of NORAD's predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), where quick-thinking Col. Harry Shoup asked his troops to play along. Now, 57 years later, it's a massive undertaking, as volunteers in military garb and Santa hats answer calls from children in hundreds of countries.
Google serves up reindeer games with Santa Tracker, lets St. Nick message your besties
Sure, Google's not in the Santa Tracking NORAD cabal anymore, but that's not stopping it from rolling out St. Nicholas-related goodies. It just launched a series of new games, including a chimney / gift dropping challenge, a rocket-powered elf race and a Santa chat that lets you send a droll holiday greeting to your "hoodlum besties." You can even play Rudolph for a lark and drag Santa around in his sleigh -- badly, in our case -- so check the source (hint: click the red box at the bottom left) for some holiday cheer, Mountain View-style.
