Track Santa on Google Maps and Earth as he delivers gifts around the world

NORAD, the military wing in charge of defending North America from maritime and aerospace attacks, seems to have a lot of spare time on its hands. Since 1955 NORAD has tracked Santa Claus as he travels around the world delivering presents -- and since 2007, Google has also been part of the project, integrating NORAD's data with Google Maps and Earth.

Basically, once Santa gets on the move -- around 2am EST on December 24 -- you can follow his movements, either in 2D or 3D, on your computer or your phone, and with Google Maps or Google Earth; just search for 'santa'. For the truly festive, there's even a NORAD Twitter account, which will presumably tweet Santa's current location in real time!

After the break, there's a video of what the experience looked like last year. I imagine it will look much the same this year, unless Santa has updated his GPS navigation hardware. Also, who knew that Rudolf's nose was quite so radiant?

Tags: christmas, festive, google, google earth, google maps, GoogleEarth, GoogleMaps, hgg, norad, norad santa tracker, NoradSantaTracker