Smart Santa

Modern-day Santa's gift-giving is driven by technology, says book 

Contrary to the standard characterisation, Santa Claus is no wizard and his holiday wish-fulfilment operation is driven entirely by technology, not magic, reveals a new book. Gregory Mone, in his book The Truth About Santa: Wormholes, Robots and What Really Happens On Christmas Eve, has unearthed the fantastic facts that have kept Santa and his elves employed for years, reports the Daily Express.

Santa is something of a gadget head, with devices far more advanced than anything our militaries or space agencies could dream up.

The reindeer-drawn sleigh is a particularly offensive idea. Santa does have a sleigh but he uses it purely for PR purposes: "the kids" love it. For the most part, though, he travels via wormhole.

Physicists consider these tunnels through space-time to be theoretical. They indulge in them as a way of thinking differently about how the universe works but Santa has been making use of them for years.

The benefit of wormholes is that they cut his travel time from one home to the next to zero. Each wormhole has two mouths, an entrance and an exit, and Santa's vast network of elfish engineers has linked hundreds of millions of living rooms and flats through these astrophysical oddities.

Moreover, how does he know what gifts to leave? How does he determine who deserves them? Again, this isn't magic.

Santa has a fleet of flying robotic surveillance drones much like the micro-aerial-vehicles, or MAVs, being developed within university laboratories across the globe today. These drones hover over schoolyards, peek into family rooms and listen in as family members yell rudely at one another.

As his flying robotic spies are too small to harbour anything but simple processors, all of the analysis of the video and the audio data that they capture has to be performed elsewhere.

S First Lady Michelle Obama reads out to children at the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in Washington
US First Lady Michelle Obama reads out to children at the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in Washington recently Photo: Reuters

Much like the ornaments, the drones transmit this raw data back to the North Pole, where intelligent video analysis software picks out potential transgressions. Flagged clips are then reviewed by elves, who note the infraction and mark the party in question naughty or nice.

Once a room is secure, Santa uses a scanner to identify the gifts that parents and loved ones have already deposited under the family tree. This information is cross-referenced with each child's wish list so that Santa can see which presents the child has not received.

Outlandish requests (spaceships, Ferraris, horses, prerelease iPhones, etc.) are generally ignored. For the most part, though, Santa deals with toys and since he cannot know what toy he is going to leave a given child until he visits the home, Santa doesn't actually bring these items with him.

He determines which item he should leave then places a gift-wrapped box on the floor and activates it via remote control. Inside, within a fluid-filled chamber, the toy self-assembles from molecular components.

ANI





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