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Backlash after 500 drones light up New York City sky to celebrate Candy Crush
- loandbehold 4y agoIt was only a matter of time before this tech is used for advertising. Soon spots in the sky will be bid on like AdWords.
- dylan604 4y agoif this drone display of a very short (relatively) duration is annoying to you, you must have missed all of the chatter about ad displays like this from satellite constellations in LEO. um, nope. I'd be all for anti-sat technology at that point
- Prcmaker 4y agoA primary difference would be that this is happening now, rather than being a hypothetical. One can dislike both, but not mentioning a hypothetical surely doesn't negate the dislike of the actual.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoAlso, it is of short duration now, but that will surely change as some battery life improves over time.
- alias_neo 4y agoI can totally see this morphing into some Blade Runner/ Cyberpunk dystopia where these "displays" fill the city skies with lady-silhouettes and roulette machines. Maybe that's ok if it's just a (logical?) upgrade to neon signs, but I'm undecided.
- dylan604 4y agoIt's the commenting on something before it happens that can help prevent it from happening. Commenting about it after it happens is the worthless effort.
- hn92726819 4y ago> Commenting about it after it happens is the worthless effort. Well that's a dense take. So candy crush has one drone ad and we are supposed to give up on preventing drone ads in the future?
- roenxi 4y ago1. It is rapidly becoming clear that drones are a historically effective technology for winning wars, killing people & destroying stuff. "The display was flown over land, from neighboring New Jersey, so as not to violate New York City airspace restrictions and laws prohibiting drones within city limits." is enough to warrant taking them out with force. 2. There is also a risk that they fall out of the sky and kill people. This sort of display is a very bad idea.
- simonh 4y agoSorry, the fact that it complied with local laws is warrant enough to take them out? Is that what you meant to write? On the safety issue, they got specific permission to fly the display, and did it over land with safety controls in place. I’m not saying this was a good idea, but if so they shouldn’t have been given a permit. The safety issue is a red herring, it seems to have been done perfectly safely, for humans anyway. Not sure about birds, but again that should have been considered by the authority that granted permission. A few comments here seem to be assuming this was done sort of unlicensed guerilla marketing caper. It wasn’t, it was done perfectly legally as far as the article reports.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoDriving like an asshole can also be legal, depending on what you’re doing and in which state. Doesn’t mean it is social acceptable. So now we need to change permitting laws because of asshole companies with advertising campaigns that ignore what is socially acceptable? And before you claim this is socially acceptable behavior, tell me another company who’s done this without backlash?
- simonh 4y agoI’m not aware of another company that’s done it at all. We’re in uncharted territory. I just think it’s odd, right in the middle of fireworks season here in the UK, for outrage at someone putting coloured lights in the sky.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
- cpsns 4y agoDo we really want a world where even the skies are full of ads?
- 1270018080 4y ago[flagged]
- tempestn 4y agoIt is possible to have capitalism with sensible regulation.
- LambdaComplex 4y agoAnd who gets to decide what counts as "sensible?"
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tempestn 4y agoIdeally a democratically elected government and their appointed representatives.
- z9znz 4y agoUnless there is regulation against it, it will happen. It has crept into virtually every other place - your TV, the sides of football pitches, the (virtual) turf on american football fields, etc. etc. In this case at least, fleets of drones couldn't really be used over populated areas due to the risk of a failing drone falling and hurting someone. So I don't expect to see too much of this in most areas. I'm sure we will see it over sports arenas when the area under has been temporarily emptied of players.
- vondur 4y agoSoon the future as depicted in Futrama will be here: Leela: Didn't you have ad's in the 20th century? Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No siree!
- z9znz 4y agoI care a lot about nature, and I don't like any creature to be unnecessarily harmed... But the visuals here are pretty awesome.
- dylan604 4y agoI think it's a missed opportunity to make it 3D instead of just 2D in the air. Show me the equivalent in 3D, then I'll be impressed. Curious of how long it takes all 500 to get into position. I know ~30 minutes flight is about normal for Mavic type drones, so just thinking how much flight time the drones in this setup get. Maybe 5-6 minutes to take off and verify all are in position, 10 minute show, 5-6 minutes to RTB and land? I'm building in some additional "fuel" for any kind of delays. Clearly, they are computer controlled (assuming an onboard computer), but just thinking the 500 number is large enough to give one pause on are we in place and ready to go checks.
- z9znz 4y agoI imagine that given the low resolution, 3D would have been much harder to understand (identify) for most viewers. Unless you happened to be facing the "front" of the 3D representation, it would probably just look like a bunch of sparse dots. As for the flight duration, they probably have larger/more batteries than consumer drones since they should be purpose made (carry self, more batteries, light+electronics (small/light), communication electronics (small/light)).
- ratsmack 4y agoI don't think too many birds were out flying in the dark, although bats may be out roaming around at that time.
- dhosek 4y agoBird migration takes place largely at night.
- MerelyMortal 4y ago"celebrate" is an interesting way to say "advertise"
- z9znz 4y agoI'm not sure they need to advertise at this point. Surely anyone with a phone has seen the game or has seen someone else playing the game. Sometimes celebrations really are just celebrations of the "life" of a thing. 10 years of existence and the massive success of this game are a pretty big deal.
- poszlem 4y agoYou could say the same about coca cola and yet they spend huge amounts of money on advertising. It's not always about people not knowing about you. More often than not it's about them not forgetting about you.
- colordrops 4y agoAdvertising never ends. You don't "finish" advertising.
- DaiPlusPlus 4y agoMicrosoft kinda stopped advertising, at least on TV, perhaps they had their reasons.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqx5Spa9MNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqx5Spa9MNo
- userbinator 4y agoNo doubt that display made at least a few people want to "celebrate" the 2nd Amendment.
- user3939382 4y agoI’d prefer if we banned outdoor public advertising altogether. Some town in Brazil did it, was it São Paulo?
- heavyset_go 4y agoBillboards are banned in Vermont, Maine, Hawaii and Alaska, all of which have absolutely beautiful landscapes.
- _huayra_ 4y agoSanta Cruz, CA, has only one billboard iirc, coming over hwy 17 from the Bay Area. I never appreciated how this muted the pace of advertising exposure until I spent time in other parts of the US where such things are less regulated.
- Eleison23 4y ago"Welcome to Murder Capital, USA"?
- twelve40 4y agowhat? santa cruz? murder capital?
- JamesianP 4y agoMultiple serial killers killed a bunch of people there at the same time in the 70's, which gained them the murder capital label. And this was spray-painted on a billboard in Lost Boys which was filmed in Santa Cruz, though of course the cause there was vampires.
- revolvingocelot 4y agoI think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree Indeed, unless the billboards fall I'll never see a tree at all. -- Ogden Nash, "Song of the Open Road"
- neworbit 4y agoI'm reminded of "Red Dwarf" How many of us saw this and thought "anti-drone lasers can't come soon enough"?
- jonstickman 4y agoDoes anyone have information on how they coordinated 500 drones to form an image in the sky?
- simonh 4y agoIt’s been possible to precisely coordinate the synchronised motion of drone swarms for quite a while now.
- petespeed 4y agoI have the same question. What is the software architecture to make that possible? Does any open-source solution exist?
- quickthrower2 4y agoML most likely? Have a camera, and then adjust the drones to fit desired image going into that camera. Feed in windspeed and other data. Drones can fly themselves already so this is just more adjustments.
- WrtCdEvrydy 4y agoI can actually speak to this. So there is software that does this for you using RTK base stations which provide better than GPS accuracy. The software is out there (skybrush is a good one open source one), you load your points into the flight controller of your drones and the show is actually fully automated after launch, the flight controllers just have waypoints and times where they should move so that the swarm doesn't collide. You can actually do it without RTK but you have to come to terms with the fact that your drones could be within 6 meters off of the target location while RTK can give you cm accuracy in the sky. The FAA actually approves swarm operations and I was able to capture some of it in Miami during the Independency Day celebration (self-plug for my own channel incoming) which you can see here -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWO3Bo1y3B8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWO3Bo1y3B8
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agohttps://skybrush.io/ https://skybrush.io/
- CursedUrn 4y agoCan someone make an adblocker for the sky?
- fallingmeat 4y agoWi-Fi jammer?
- Vecr 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoUnfortunately it’s illegal to shoot down drones in many US jurisdictions. And there is a federal law that hasn’t been tested against drones yet: “Under Title 18 United States Code 32, it is a federal crime to damage, destroy, disable, or wreck an aircraft. The penalty for violating 18 U.S.C. 32 is up to 20 years in prison.” Also discharging a firearm could be considered excessive and illegal under certain circumstances.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ge96 4y agoBuilt into AR contacts heh Black mirror ep
- pclmulqdq 4y agoA reasonably-sized yagi antenna and an SDR should do quite nicely.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agohttps://www.fcc.gov/general/jammer-enforcement https://www.fcc.gov/general/jammer-enforcement “ The use of a phone jammer, GPS blocker, or other signal jamming device designed to intentionally block, jam, or interfere with authorized radio communications is a violation of federal law. There are no exemptions for use within a business, classroom, residence, or vehicle. Local law enforcement agencies do not have independent authority to use jamming equipment; in certain limited exceptions use by Federal law enforcement agencies is authorized in accordance with applicable statutes.”
- arriu 4y agoThe next form of this could be in low orbit; far from the reach of local laws. As we can see here, it’s not enough to ban drones within the city.
- Trouble_007 4y agoPerhaps anyone in the viewing area who had a car accident may have a claim against the company for visual distraction?
- WrtCdEvrydy 4y agoHere's the answers for everyone who has questions. As an FAA Safety Team Member (24891, https://www.faasafety.gov/FAASTApp/directory/view.aspx?appID=24891 https://www.faasafety.gov/FAASTApp/directory/view.aspx?appID...), I can shed more light on this. The FAA owns the skies and provides waivers and this was probably a waived operation from the FAA so they were probably coordinating this on the ground. Cities, and states can pass laws about where it's legal to operate drones, but no city or state may pass a law restricting the "navigable airspace". New York City's ordinance states that it's "illegal to operate drones from NYC and Manhattan" but that's as far as they can go. It's up to the FAA to decide if an operation is a threat to the public and whether it can be done safely. For drone swarms, the controllers are pre-programmed and have RTK modules providing additional accuracy down to the cm or millimeter compared to meters from GPS and once the modules are loaded and launched the flight can be executed autonomously (however, most of these light shows don't have any sensors so collision avoidance is really within the swarm itself and careful planning to avoid manned aircraft and buildings). If you'd like to see one of these shows in action from the air (self plug), I have a video from the Independence Day show that occurred in Miami on my channel here -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWO3Bo1y3B8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWO3Bo1y3B8
- GoOnThenDoTell 4y agoThere are plenty of other ways to indirectly ban something
- WrtCdEvrydy 4y agoThe FAA owns the sky. As long as they deemed the risk of property damage, injury and loss of life was properly mitigated to aircraft and people on the ground, and the operation was performed within the constraints of the waiver they have the ultimate power here... however nothing here is being done in the shadows. Part 107 (commercial drone operations) waivers are available publicly and can be searched online at https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/part_107_waivers/waivers_issued/ https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/part_107_waiver.... The waiver for drone swarms will be waiving the drone swarm requirement under "107.35 – Operation of Multiple Small UAS" so you can search there to find who was given the waiver and their contact information.
- Animats 4y agoShenzhen is way ahead in drone shows.[1][2] It helps when they're made locally. Fireworks are so last-cen. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qmUTllPbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qmUTllPbE [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apokvH4F9Ws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apokvH4F9Ws
- Gigachad 4y agoThese look good on YouTube but in reality they move quite slow and are pretty underwhelming. Most online videos of drone shows are sped up quite a lot. And missing the most exciting part of fireworks which is the sound/shockwaves
- seanhunter 4y agoWhich is also the part which completely terrifies all the animals for miles around. I dread the "fireworks season" which here in the UK stretches from Diwali until after 5 Nov with a brief coda around xmas and New Year because of the effect it has on my dog. It's absolute torture for him even though we do what we can to mitigate the impact.
- Gigachad 4y agoSure, that’s a reasonable reason to dislike them. But I think people get a bit dishonest with the drone shows. They try to promote them as better than fireworks when they just aren’t. We can admit that we are compromising
- seanhunter 4y agoTotally agree. Fireworks can be wonderful. One of my fondest memories is when as a child of about 6 my father (a chemical engineer) taught my brother and me how to make gunpowder and we made fireworks. We added a bunch of other chemicals to make them burn different colours (copper sulphate for blue etc) and then set them off when it got dark. My mother was so freaked out by how dangerous it was that she made him promise never to do it again. Feels particularly special now as he's old and has dementia so his days of doing crazy shit are coming back but not in quite the same way.
- Eleison23 4y agohttps://xkcd.com/1523/ https://xkcd.com/1523/
- xbar 4y agoGood job, Microsoft.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- geuis 4y agoGiven the positive results of commercial drones in Ukraine over the last 8 months, I've been wondering about when this kind of tech is going to converge with the war. If you can equip 20+ drones with grenades, controlled by a single operator, and mass a formation on an entrenched Russian position, what can be the results? It's trivial today to equip commercial drones with individual human tracking. Or identify groups of a few hiding in a bunker or a hole. Sky really is the limit. Imagine a military level version of a drone swarm targeting a major encampment or forward position. Combine a combo of arms from grenades to small missiles with the ability to identify unique targets of interest. An average HIMARS missile costs about $100k. You could get dozens of highly capable commercial drones for that price. Imagine a swarm of hundreds of military drones carrying "small arms" but able to individually target enemy positions on a dynamic real-time basis. It's honestly kind of scary and awe inspiring about how effective such relatively low cost mass deployment systems could be.
- djohnston 4y agoThe US has been developing drone swarms since the 2010s at least, I assume other first-class militaries are roughly at the same capability or perhaps better. So, it has existed for awhile but I don't think the swarms have been employed.
- tomjen3 4y agoI wish there was a way to ban pay to win games like this shit. Or at the very least put such a high tax on the marketing that it becomes impossible to make a business out of it.
- BerislavLopac 4y agoThis discussion reminds me of the old joke from the Cold War era. A shortened version guess like this: - Mr President, the USSR has landed on the Moon and they're painting it RED! - Ah okay, when they're done send our guys to put the Coca-Cola sign over it.
- tamaharbor 4y agoLike them or not, the drones are cool.