To the CIOs and tech geeks, the very existence of an avuncular chap in red and white and a flowing beard atop a snow sleigh who goes around the world distributing goodies to kids might seem quite preposterous.

Not so to Larry Silverberg, associate head of North Carolina State University's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. Larry has apparently spent a lot of time figuring out Santa and his “technology” that makes him so popular with kids (and their moms & dads, some of whom are, ahem, CIOs!) 

Sample these among the “tech secrets” Larry reveals about the Ho-Ho-Ho guy: A listening antenna a mile wide and long hidden beneath the snow (with a mesh that picks up electromagnetic waves); a “relativity cloud” which is a “domain of space and time”; and—hold your cloud—a nano-tech toymaker that grows the gifts under the tree.

Wow.

Didn't the late famous writer Arthur C Clarke say, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?”

Now, go tell your CFO about the magic properties of the elastic cloud ;)