Santa’s NORAD Escort (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The North American Aerospace Defense Command—or NORAD—switched its Santa Tracker for Google Maps to Bing. Michael Kucharek, spokesperson for the project, told ABC News that it was a mutual decision. NORAD’s Tracks Santa also follows his social media—including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

TechCrunch reported that children can keep tabs on Santa with Google’s new Chrome extension. Children can even sign up for a customized phone call through Gmail.

TechCrunch ABC News

Image via CrunchBase

This Friday, Bing and Big Think present the For Humankind pop-up expo. The event features science, technology, and design innovations that support the human experience. Some companies involved in the expo include Microsoft, Sonar, and Kimetric. The expo highlights the devices and ideas that amplify human nature, and focus on what it means to be human.

The expo will take place at 201 Mulberry Street, New York, NY. The opening night is this Friday, June 29th at 7 pm, and the event continues on Saturday from 10 am to 6pm, and again on Sunday from 10 am to 2 pm. Those interested in attending should RSVP to kelly@airfoilpr.com.

For Humankind

Image via Wikipedia

NY-based startup Bitly, known for its link shortening technology, is now focusing on creating a consumer search engine that will include “trendy” topics as the core of its search results. Although, as Business Insider points out, it will be difficult to compete with major search engines like Google and Bing, if the social analytics company positions itself wisely, it could potentially become a powerful tool.

Business Insider spoke with Hilary Mason, the company’s chief scientist, to get closer look at the future of Bitly, who stated that this new direction is about more than just  showing users links and data, but to also “give you the tools to actually change what’s happening.”

Business Insider

The announcement came at the Mix ’11 conference in April.

ZDNet

JWT also lost the Microsoft Office account and now is only working on fostering the Windows 7 brand in China and Brazil.  Microsoft has hired advertising agency Deutsch Inc. to manage the Office brand.

Adweek

By Jim Flood

During last night's monthly NY Tech Meetup at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, one audience question really got under MC Nate Westheimer's skin. The founders of startup Philo, a social network/check-in app based around TV viewing, had just given their demo. Someone asked how they plan to make money, a question that had already been asked of other presenters and that is often on people's minds when they first hear of a business idea, whether it's tech-based or not.

Westheimer broke in and said he wanted to skip that question, moving on to another. Later he explained that he's tired of having presenters asked about their revenue models, and suggested that questions about money should again be banned from the event as they were in the past. Many in the audience applauded this sentiment, which Westheimer cemented by stating that the NY Tech meetup is about technology, not business. 

That said, it can be reasonably assumed that most of the following companies who presented their ideas hope to make money from them:

Eventros: An event-specific social networking app that allows people attending an event of any type to post profiles, comment and connect with each other while it's going on.

Market Publique: A shopping site for vintage clothing with an exclusivity clause: sellers are vetted to make sure their clothing is vintage enough and their photographs of merchandise are attractive enough.

Turnto: Forging ahead with the trend of people revealing every detail of their lives to each other online, this service allows you to voluntarily register your e-commerce purchases and recommend products to friends.

Indaba: The highlight of the well-received demo by this collaborative music-making and -selling site was the reveal of a patent-pending audio mixing platform that lets users work on tracks right in their browser.

Philo: This service allows TV lovers to check in while watching a show and comment on it with fellow fans (or haters), online or on their mobile device. 

Twilio: Lets businesses build communication-focused apps — for teleconferencing or customer service, for example. Note to future NY Tech Meetup demo-ers based on this presentation: typing code on screen gets you lots of audience love.

Willow Garage's Texai: Robotics meets teleconferencing: the Texai allows a user to connect with a monitor on wheels across the country or the world. You can move around a room and interact with people in a remote location, instead of just appearing as a talking head on a wall or laptop. No ability to pick up objects or shake people's hands via robot arm, but you can move around a facility and see what's happening around corners. 

Also speaking last night was Drop.io founder Sam Lessin, who offered what was billed as a rebuttal of Clay Shirky's talk at last month's Meetup. If you weren't there to hear Shirky and have not read his book, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, Lessin's motor-mouthed, two-seconds-per-slide presentation about intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation and economic theory might not have made much sense to you. 

The evening's final presenter was a representative of Microsoft search engine — or as they term it, "decision engine" — Bing, who showed off some new functionality and Safari extensions. One feature, an ability to drill down on maps to the blueprint of a building, prompted a NY Tech Meetup member to post a comment on the group's website about "potentially disastrous security implications."

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> Clay Shirky Talks and Startups Demo at NY Tech Meetup

> Death of an iPad at the NY Tech Meetup

The day will be co-led by Matt Howell, chief Interactive officer at Modernista! and Faris Yakob, Chief Innovation Officer at MDC Partners. Speakers include Blaise Aguera Y Arcas, Architect of Bing Maps and Bing Mobile; Ivan Askwith, director of strategy, Big Spaceship; Andrew Bell, Creative Technologist of The Mill; Nicke Bergstrom, creative director Mother New York, among others.

CreativityCat.com

The new site, optimized for smartphones, features a cleaner, more streamlined layout with a white background  and better integration with Bing and other Microsoft properties.

MediaPost

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> Office
2010 Launched Today In New York

The service is now available to Bing users.

SearchEngineWatch.com

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> Google Announces Adwords Search Funnels at
#SESny

Bing, meanwhile, turned up headlines from ABC News and CNN immediately.  Additional searching found more up-to-the minute headlines on Google, but they were "hidden" on Google's realtime updates page.

TechCrunch

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> Bing and Google Compete for New York Diners

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