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Google Loses Santa To Bing
New submitter Sebolains writes "Unlike previous years, NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) has decided to use Bing maps to track Santa's journey as he goes around the world delivering presents. Starting Christmas eve, one will be able to go to the official NORAD Santa tracking site and use Bing maps to see where Santa is delivering presents at that time. In previous years, NORAD has always gone for Google maps to track Saint Nick. The reason for this switch were not disclosed, but since nearly 25 million people are expected to use this tool come this Christmas, this will definitely benefit Bing in the ongoing competition for online map applications."
And that's why no presents, he got lost.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I've never used them for navigation but Bing maps(furnished by Nokia I believe) have much better aeriel photos. I can see my house from 6 angles on Bing, which is mostly blocked by a large tree on Google. That being said I still use Google maps for pretty much everything else just because I'm used to it.
I'm not exactly sure why, but when it comes to mapping some non-existent being's non-existent journey, Bing seems somehow so much more appropriate than Google.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
Anybody heard of it before?
It has made Santa very mad that he has to specify the pictures he is looking for... naughty or nice...
The reason for this switch were not disclosed, but since nearly 25 million people are expected to use this tool come this Christmas
Google Maps pricing probably forced them to Bing which at this point is still cheaper by an order of magnitude compared to Google Maps.
At least we'll get the Heat Miser.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqVwYx-YT-I
...is they didn't want Santa to die going the wrong way
or accidentally flying over a major airport Google does not show.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
NORAD, using Microsoft products... Well, at least we know how the world ends.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Well, useless fantasy information ending where it belongs? ;)
Microsoft simply made an offer nobody could refuse.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
"But since nearly 25 million people are expected to use this tool come this Christmas, this will definitely benefit Bing in the ongoing competition for online map applications."
Yeah? Prove it.
After spending the last few years watching their users' every move, they've moved on to tracking other imaginary beings.
bing maps is about the ONLY thing bing actually does better than google. they typically have better address geolocation data and their 'Birds Eye' aerial view uses data from flyovers, not just satellites, in many areas.
bing search, on the other hand...what a joke...
It's a sad day when Santa sells it's soul to the gigantic, monopolistic human-rights violating bucket of broken glass that calls itself Micro$oft.
Well payed, Microsoft. Well payed..
Now Santa won't be your parents anymore. Now will be your Big Brother.
Do we really have to feed the insanity?
... left an Aegis cruiser dead in the water for several days
I would like to see the actual decision making process behind this....
http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/g-639.pdf
and any and all emails from any Microsoft employee associated to this decision.
How on earth does NORAD not have its own satellite imagery that they could use?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The story prompted me to look at bing maps. Very first direction request produced a poor route. When dragging the route to change it gives less time and distance, you know it's not the source to use! There is no way to reset a drag! etc. etc. I'll stick with google.
But one wonders how this government agency was co-opted.
It's much better now, but for a while I had a heck of a time with Google Maps crashing where Bing Maps worked great. This was in Google Chrome... on Linux. I use both now, and the Google Maps app on my Android phone is getting laggy and crashy enough that I put Bing on it as backup. Still like the Google Maps interface better on Android though.
I read on some gold plates that the Flying Spaghetti Monster uses Google Maps for His flying.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
their asses.
In addition to Bing Maps, NORAD is also using a new open source, WebGL-based, 3D globe called Cesium: http://cesium.agi.com/2012/11/30/NORAD-Tracks-Santa-Tech-Preview/
This is one of the most significant uses of WebGL to date and will hopefully do a lot to increase awareness of the technology.
Disclaimer: I work on Cesium.
Am I the only one surprised to find out that Bing has a map application?
I always assumed they would use Yahoo Maps for some reason.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Wait... they're not? I've been fooled for years!
In order for Bing Maps to have been "chosen", a significant amount of shekels likely changed hands. Nothing MS make rival anything Google make. Google Maps are the industry standard and for good reason. Google Maps colours are easy on the eyes. Everyone else has hideous colouring on their maps. My .02p anyway...
If Santa was using Apple Maps, your presents would be delivered down someone's chimney 7 miles away......
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Santa is a completely fictitious figure who does not go flying around on Christmas Eve!
And NORAD is not tracking a real thing!
And anyone, can make up a "track Santa" map application!
WTF?
If having a "track Santa" map is important to Google, I'm sure they can create just that. This story makes no sense at all.
I think a better title for this story would be "Apparently, NORAD owns 'Santa' and has now sold him to Microsoft"
Who gives a flying fuck?
A little less impressed with Google maps when it didn't have the TOWN i was looking for listed. Bing and Mapquest were both able to show me but Google comes up with nada. Tough to find the cars hidden in barns hidden in the middle of wheat fields when one has no clue where the town in the ad is at for the start point! To be fair they all found the actual gravel road and Bing also lists it as next city over. Google just doesn't label or recognize the small old town nearest it.
Google is definitely getting too big and powerful.
It's good to show people that there are alternatives.
Have we already forgotten this?
Santa on google/NORAD stinks. It feels like an early 90s POS. Same shit each year, with a token lame video. Anyone with kids will know how shit google's effort has been, especially when a 5 year old points out it's the same as the previous year. Hopefully MS will up the game and make it more exciting for children that still go alone with the story.
...Santa isn't using an iPhone for navigation this year.
So wassat? something cool? Lemme google that!
Click on that link anyway. It includes a search for "airport."
Right, that's zoomed in - you could see the shape of it also on the image I linked. But you couldn't see any sign that shape was the airport - if you were a traveller you would not know where to zoom in, when I travel I just zoom out from the city and search for "Airport" all the time. If you zoom out on your link you'll find that none of the search results are at that location although at least they are in the same city!
I was actually pretty astounded that this error existed in Google, as this kind of vague contextual search that should use past searches by lots of people to guess what the user is really looking for, should be right up Google's alley. You'd think that searching on an airport code would be better, but this morning a search for "DIA" took me to somewhere in France... it works better now but the main result for DIA is not the airport.
Interestingly at iOS6 launch , that "airport" search pulled up the wrong airport in Denver. But after about a month (I did submit a correction) DIA was properly the featured airport for any kind of wide search. That is why I say that competition is good for both map apps, because it is bringing to light flaws that have been in Google a long time and should not have been, and those will probably get corrected faster now than they were.
It's weird because there's a "Denver Airport" place marker on Google Maps, but I guess it doesn't count for some reason.
Why could that possibly be? That makes no sense to me. It really makes you question the advantage of Google having all these great placemarks (which they do) if they are not used all the time by map search.
To me the interesting thing about comparison results from Google Maps to Apple, is that Apple while being sometimes too cagey with results ("found nothing"), Google is often too permissive with results ("I found nothing but perhaps you'll enjoy this random set of locations that have nothing to do with your search whatsoever"). No-one ever questioned that behavior of Google much before but I think they may start if other mapping apps get better at returning the most relevant point of interest.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I would imagine it has something to do with buckets of money.
I didn't know Bing was a map application. I thought Bing was that guy that was tap dancing with Danny F**king Kaye on the hap-hap-happiest Christmas ever with those jolly bunch of a**holes at the Griswold's? :-)
Isn't that that search engine that nobody uses, except characters in Hollywood action movies?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
People make fun of Bing, but Bing Maps, images and video searches are all excellent, in some ways better than Google...it's in text search Google hands down beats the snot out of Microsoft, since that's what I mostly search for I use Google...but I wouldn't laugh at Bing, it's fairly good in it's non-core elements.
NORAD asked for a "Bing Crosby Xmas", and somebody fscked-up the order.
Table-ized A.I.
ya... only on christian holidays is it ok to lie to your children... santa... the easter bunny... oh wait, i mean pagan holidays.
I see to remember that they had some issues last year with Google Maps and the Google Earth Plugin. Having some little-ones it is fun to "track Santa", but there were times where it just was not working last year. Perhaps this switch has something to do with that?
His yearly supply of coal was getting dangerously low.
I'm living in Jiaxing, China, a medium size city of 4 million people. Google Maps is close 100% acurate, but Bing thinks the whole city is just a single T junction of two roads. Guess which mapping application is often blocked here...
I just fired up Google Maps on my Android phone, asked for Denver International Airport and found it
Yes of course. Pretty much any map app will pull up something if you type the exact name.
But a visitor may not know the exact name. When I'm traveling and want to get a sense of how far away the airport is (so I know how much time it might take in a taxi to get there) I just usually search for "Airport". That's exactly the kind of things that advanced search systems are supposed to help with, understanding what you probably meant by short or ambiguous queries.
People complain that Apple Maps are horribly flawed and yet overlook major blunders like this on the part of Google. No mapping system is perfect, but Apple Maps works as well, or in some cases better than Google for many people now in many places. This is just one example where Apple leads in an area that most people would claim is Google's strength.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Surely Google can do their own version of Santa flying, anyway?
I don't believe it's exclusive, trade-secret information. Or even particularly accurate - is Santa REALLY over France at that exact moment?
I can't confirm it as true or even tell you how many people it has taken to get to me but the rumor around NORAD is that Google wanted us to pay this year and Bing offered to do it for free (like google used to).
Don't blame the fiscal cliff, it's Bing that will make Santa fall off the cliff.
The "tracking software" being used is a product from AGI, with whom I'm sure they are very famliar with and use the other defense-related software suites. AGI has long been using Bing Maps for various reasons, among them being better visualization. As a fellow customer of AGI, I got a nice press release from their company weeks ago bragging about developing the Santa Tracker for their NORAD customer. Microsoft might get to brag that they are being used, but only because they came as a bundled deal with the AGI package.
It's always good to have competition.