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Rio Olympics Will Be First Sporting Event Watched By 'Eye In The Sky' Drone Cameras (fastcompany.com)

tedlistens quotes a report from Fast Company: When the Olympic Games begin next month in Rio de Janeiro, billions of people are expected to watch athletes from countries around the world compete. But also watching over the Olympic and Paralympic events will be a set of futuristic, balloon-mounted surveillance camera systems capable of monitoring a wide swath of the city in high resolution and in real-time. Initially developed for use by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan by Fairfax, Virginia-based Logos Technologies, the technology is sold under the name Simera, and offers live aerial views of a large area, or what the company calls 'wide-area motion imagery,' captured from a balloon tethered some 200 meters above the ground. The system's 13 cameras make it possible for operators to record detailed, 120-megapixel imagery of the movement of vehicles and pedestrians below in an area up to 40 square kilometers, depending on how high the balloon is deployed, and for up to three days at a time. The Rio Olympics marks the "first time [Simera] will be deployed by a non-U.S. government at a large-scale event," according to the company. Simera is being compared to a live city-wide Google Maps combined with TiVo, as it can let law enforcement view ground-level activities in real time in addition to letting them rewind through saved images. Doug Rombough, Logo's vice president of business development, says the image clarity is not good enough to make out individual faces or license plate numbers, though it is clear enough to follow individual people and vehicles around the city. "However, a higher resolution video camera attached to the same balloon, which captures images at 60 times that of full HD resolution, or 15 times 4K, at three frames per second, will allow operators to get a closer look at anything or anyone that looks suspicious," reports Fast Company.

19 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Hopefully high enough to watch the crime too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The real event will be all the looting / kidnapping going on around the events.

    1. Re:Hopefully high enough to watch the crime too by nyet · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not to mention livestreaming of the explosive diarrhea and vomiting competitions

      http://www.chron.com/olympics/...

  2. Will not be the first... by stooo · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Rio Olympics Will Be First Sporting Event .....
    Bul lshit
    and what's that ?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

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    1. Re:Will not be the first... by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      Yeah drones have been covering golf for ages now

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      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

  3. Yet another reason not to go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not that Zika Virus, and the general shittyness of Rio isnt enough reason. now we have privately sponsored big brother

  4. So, the Question is by npslider · · Score: 2

    Will this camera footage be a part of the NBC Broadcast? That would make some epic footage!

    1. Re:So, the Question is by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      only the taped delayed and edited to shit ver.

    2. Re: So, the Question is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's tangential, but I've wondered why drones aren't used more in filming sports. It would solve some serious issues in some sports.

      During the 2011 Tour de France, a TV car hit Johnny Hoogerland, knocking him off his bike and into and barbed wire fence. This year, spectators on the road forced a motorbike to stop, causing riders to crash into it from behind. This wrecked Chris Froome's bike, forcing him to run part of the way up Mont Ventoux. While he kept his yellow jersey, it is still ridiculous.

      The roads are crowded during the TdF with TV cameras on motorbikes and in cars, support cars for the teams, cars for race doctors and officials, and motorbikes that relay things like time gaps to the riders. Why not get the TV motorbikes and cars off the roads by mounting cameras on drones? There are drones that can keep up with riders, even on mountain descents. You could get similar views to what you get now from the motorbikes, plus some unique views like just above the middle of the peloton. It's also a lot safer for the riders. Why isn't this happening in the TdF?

    3. Re: So, the Question is by HockeyPuck · · Score: 2

      The views from the back of a motorcycle are much better for seeing the riders up close than any overhead shot. Flying a drone at "rider level" would be just plain dumb. #EasyTargetForCrazyFans.

      The helicopter shots are great for seeing the scale of the peloton, the breakaways, finish line sprints and the scenery, but for seeing a rider up close and the pain in their face, or looking back at other riders. Nothing beats the back of a motorcycle.

  5. THERE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "That Dude with the phone just tweeted #Rio2016, launch the rockets!!"

  6. Can we get that feed? NBC sucks! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    Can we get that feed? NBC sucks!

    1. Re: Can we get that feed? NBC sucks! by rgbscan · · Score: 1

      @NBCDelayed . Plenty of comedy last time. Hoping for the same this time :-)

  7. Re:Shall we start the pool? by chispito · · Score: 1

    How long until one fails and takes out an athlete or audience member?

    Taken out by a helium balloon? I'm guessing a very long time. If one develops a leak it will slowly start sinking. The station that it's tethered to is probably designed to reel it in if that happens and it'll end up where it started from.

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    The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
  8. Remember they told us . . . by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 1

    . . . that there were no cameras mounted on JLENS? You really didn't believe them, did you?

  9. Re:Shall we start the pool? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yes but what about fire?

    Not sharp. Less hard than a rock. Lame.

  10. Wow! by reboot246 · · Score: 1

    Even the cameramen don't want to set foot on the ground in Rio.

    "Tote a camera out in that filth? No thanks, I'll just operate a drone from inside this clean control booth."

  11. normalization by n3r0.m4dski11z · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Once we have been desensitized to mass surveillance of this sort, it will become commonplace.

    First they use it for sporting events, then all events with police presence,.then all the time because its cheaper to keep the system active than risk missing something and getting sued.

    And thus continues the fall. However with the generations now who love to watch themselves on internet tv, I am not sure if anyone will be left who remembers a world where everything wasn't recorded and archived. If you haven't used an advanced camera system lately, they are approaching zoom, enhance, track, television style skills that was nothing but a CSI joke 10 years ago.

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  12. Well... by MitchDev · · Score: 1

    the drones can have the Olympics, what a waste of time and money for a fascist organization like the IOC....

  13. Olympics Losing it's Panache by rtb61 · · Score: 1

    The Olympics is really losing it shine and it's once vote winning ability as the leading Government subsidised sports advertising event. The political attempt to kick out the entire Russian team for the cheating they all do is a real sign of the Olympics loss of image. Without the lock in of main stream media controlling the public mind space, the Olympic spirit is looking really rather blemished and frankly quite boring and is really losing it's ability to sell pretty much anything. All it ever really celebrated was a tiny minority of people, willing to do the same boring repetitive completely and totally unproductive (at least production line workers produce something) task, over and over and over again. So here is an interesting question in times of austerity and the public suffering it creates, what exactly is the global tax spend on the Olympics, year in and year out, 1 billion dollars, 10 billion dollars, perhaps even more, all spent to sell products the winners promote upon the basis "It ain't lying, it's acting".

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    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen