...most talked about #Android app in the last 24hrs was: NORAD Tracks Santa http://t.co/VfKz3vLZ... Read More

Ho ho ho. The latest and greatest in silly phone apps have arrived just in time for the holidays. This one is probably the most fun: Take short videos and overlay explosions and other disastrous effects with the new Action Movie FX app for iOS from J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Interactive. Action Movie FX is missing a few features I’d like, such as sharing on Twitter and YouTube, and also the ability to add effects on videos taken outside the app. But it’s free (extra effects like a tornado and an airstrike cost $0.99 for a pack of two) and destructive, and only slightly likely to bring out the sociopathic tendencies in your little ones. Next, Jimmy Fallon will wake you up with a variety of silly alarms, each featuring a wacky ringtone and the voice of the late night host cracking jokes told directly to you. Keep in mind, it’s Read More

Since 1955, the North American Aerospace Defense Command has tracked Santa Claus like a Soviet missile. Back in the day, it was CONAD - the Continental Air Defense Command. When Canada joined the defense grid in 1958, offering access to Santa's Arctic airspace, it became NORAD. To this day, NORAD staff, family and friends volunteer to track this bogey across the Yuletide sky. These days, NORAD and Google work together to track Santa. Now that the private sector is so good at tracking things, Google can let citizens track Santa Claus themselves. For the 2011 NORAD Santa exercise, anyone with a smartphone can search 'Santa' on Google Maps for mobile and get a Santa target lock in the palm of their hand. The tradition started by accident. A 1955 Sears Roebuck holiday catalog misprinted the phone number for kids in Colorado Springs to call Santa Claus. Instead of Santa, they called Read More

Santa is real. He brings all the good boys and girls their presents, eats some cookies, drinks a glass of milk and feeds a carrot to his reindeer. Oh, and he also records personalized video greeting cards, uses QR gift tags and shows up on your OnStar dashboard. The holidays are a season for the wilful suspension of disbelief, and once again, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, is helping children big and small to keep tabs on Santa’s whereabouts. NORAD, which was established as a joint Canadian and U.S. airspace defense military organization, has been tracking Santa for more than 50 years. These days, it’s utilizing radar, fighter jets and a network of webcams to do so. Status updates are posted to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Google Earth and a whole bunch of other services. But of course there is a whole lot of other geeky holiday Read More