(CNET) - Last Christmas Eve, Jeff Martin found himself forced to explain to a Canadian general why, when Santa Claus passed through Toronto, Ontario, that night, Google Maps had placed the city in the United States.
Martin, then a senior marketing manager in Google's Geo Group, was part of a huge team of people involved in the joint US-Canada North American Aerospace Defense Command's annual NORAD Santa tracker program, a long-running effort Thurs provide children the world over a Live View of Santa's progress as he and his reindeer deliver Christmas presents.
In 2007, Google signed onto the project as a technology partner, and since then, has been incorporating data NORAD's Santa's whereabouts is a special 2D into Google Maps and Google Earth 3D representations.
And that's where the trouble began.
Inexplicably, as Santa made his way through that night in Toronto last year, the mapping software began Identifying the city as being in the United States. Instantly, NORAD's Santa dedicated Gmail account "just lit up" with messages from irate Canadians, Martin said, and quickly, the Google team fixed the problem.
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