Microsoft’s Bing Maps to provide satellite imagery for the NORAD Santa Tracker

Microsoft has partnered with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to provide satellite imagery for its Santa Tracker this year. NORAD has worked with Cesium to develop a 3D Santa Tracker that uses satellite imagery provided by Bing Maps.

For devices that cannot support the 3D version of the tracker, a 2D map has been developed that also uses the Bing Maps APIs to provide various features. Those who access the tracker starting December 24 will be able to track Santa’s current location. As he travels the world, you’ll be able to find Wikipedia articles about his current location to learn more about the place and watch videos of Santa Cam.

As mentioned, the tracker won’t be live until closer to Christmas but if you want to head over to it. noradsanta.org Now you can listen to Christmas music, play games, read books about Christmas, learn about NORAD and more. There are also links to Android and iOS mobile apps if you prefer to access content on mobile.

While in recent years NORAD’s Santa Tracker Is A more digital first, the service has actually been running since 1955 and families were able to call a phone number to find out about Santa.