Here’s some fun stuff going on this holiday season with maps that you might be interested in:

NORAD Tracks Santa
Keeping with tradition since 1955 (if you don’t know the history, you should Sears-iously check it out), NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) will be keeping track of Santa’s annual voyage across the world. This year’s tracking technology includes Google Maps, Google Earth and even Twitter.

If you can’t wait for the scheduled 6 a.m takeoff on Christmas Eve (Blitzen wakes up early), you can check out the NORADSanta page for games and a daily treasure hunt. It started last week (Dec. 12), and will continue until Christmas Eve. The game consists of getting a clue and then finding a hidden toy on Google Earth. It’s like Christmas geo-caching without going out in the cold!

Google Earth in New York
Though not decked out in Christmas décor, Google has been updating their 3D view of New York throughout the year, and its almost finished. Google has pretty much completed the whole of Manhattan Island with photo textured 3D buildings. You can’t see Rockefeller Center in all it’s 3D Christmas glory, but the view (Google Earth>New York City>3D Building layer> Tilt View) is pretty impressive.

Google Maps Christmas Lights
Coca Cola has a fun little holiday program powered by Google Maps. Simply find the building you want to decorate, and you can add a variety of twinkling lights by drawing or using a pre-configured stencil (surprisingly, there is no iconic Coke bottles or logos). We had a good time decorating our house, and our boss’ house (not suitable for display). Here you can find what a birds-eye view of our office building should look like this time of year. Check it out for yourself, it might even appease your wife, who’s still upset that you chose not to put up lights this year.

Rand McNally Maps for Kindle
Rand McNally is taking their road atlas’ (atlasi?) digital, porting them to the Amazon Kindle. The Kindle-ized version will include a complete searchable index. Currently available for California and Washington (more to come), the maps cost $1.99 each. While we commend Rand for the effort, the static maps don’t really seem to be up to par with current internet maps and GPS technology. Then again, our idea of useful technology involves putting fake lights on a picture of our office.

Hopefully you’ve found some interesting holiday map news, or at least an enjoyable bit of fun off the beaten track. If you’re charting a course for some more news, check out our holiday news and irresistible deals. We also have some impressive gift ideas (GPS and Kindle included) if you haven’t found the right gift yet. You might even want to navigate to our newly reworked Travel & Map Software Reviews or GPS Reviews.

Tags: Christmas Map, Coca Cola Christmas, Google Christmas, Google Earth, Google Earth Christmas, Google Maps, google maps Christmas, holiday maps, Kindle Map, NORAD Santa, Norad Tracks Santa, Rand McNalley Kindle

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 12:48 pm and is filed under Holiday Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.