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Intel Wants To Replace Fireworks With Drones (marketwatch.com)
Intel has announced a drone called the "Shooting Star" that has the potential to augment or replace fireworks. The drone weighs about as much as a volleyball and can light up in 4 billion color combinations for commercial entertainment light shows. MarketWatch reports: Whether drone-focused light shows will prove to be more cost-efficient is a bigger question. The devices would only have to be purchased once, but would likely cost much more than a standard small-scale fireworks show. Small-town holiday fireworks displays typically cost about $2,000 to $7,000 for a basic show, according to Premier Pyrotechnics, while the city of Houston spent an estimated $100,000 on its 2016 Fourth of July fireworks show, according to Houston Business Journal. On a grander scale, estimates suggest Macy's Inc. may spend $6 million on its annual Fourth of July fireworks show. Intel's drones are not publicly for sale, and the chip maker would not disclose how much they would cost. For now, the drones are proof of the ability to automate multiple drone flights at once, using software that could be adapted to commercial applications like mapping or inspections.
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom.
If Intel has to branch out into Christmas drones to stay in business.
You can't replace fireworks with stuff that doesn't intentionally blow up. That's most of the fun of fireworks. That you can make a pretty bomb. That's what's impressive. Of course a drone can do much more color variety. But it's a piece of high tech remote controlled/programmed flight equipment.
On the other hand you have a bomb that explodes and changes color and does cool shapes. Just a carefully made bomb. That's pretty cool.
People can also watch a fireworks screen saver while staying inside, and yet they keep showing up for real outdoor fireworks.
Those people don't want a fake show.
if they can find a way to have samsung get involved. Now there is your earth shattering kaboom!
Unless you hear a boom, whoosh, BOOOOM! then ooh's and aah's it is not worth going to see a overblown light show.
Passionately Indifferent
in this instance
FFS, at least use standard weights and measures, like Libraries of Congress and Toyotas.
Seriously, how much does a volleyball weigh? I've never played volleyball so I don't have a clue. 1kg? 2kg? This is important because I need to know how much it'll hurt when the batteries in these things die and they fall on my head!
can light up in 4 billion color combinations for commercial entertainment light shows
Total marketing. RGB LED's and PWM has existed a very long time. Sounds impressive until you realize that's just 32bit color.
Basically, it will look like a big stupid christmas tree in the sky. And there will be no explosions, so the audio will be faked too, with huge deafening loudspeakers.
Fake, fake, fake.
Where are they computing 4 billion color combinations?
24-bit sRGB = 2^24 = ~16 million colors
When people talk about 32-bit color, they're really referring to 24-bit sRGB + 8-bit alpha (transparency).
30-bit color: = ~1 billion colors
According to the Wikipedia article on color depth
10-bit professional video displays are actually providing 10 bits per color channel, and use a value of 95 for black and 685 for white; the values from 685 to 1023 are used for "whiter than white" images like glare, specular highlights, and similar details.
Yeah, okay I guess they could use their own color standard and give green an extra 2 bits (like the 16-bit 565 format that has an extra bit for green). But why bother doing that? Also, I'm pretty sure that in practice they won't use more than a few dozen colors -- all very close to maximum intensity.
...but sheep work too.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Just hand out wireless VR headsets with wireless headphones to everybody, and enjoy the fake fireworks in virtual reality.
Fireworks is a lot of fun to watch, but what we often forget is that it is a virtual nightmare for the animals, dogs tends to be scared out of their minds during news years eve, and various cities in Sweden are currently working on banning fireworks altogether.
Truth is, they're environmentally dangerous in every way, fun as it may be.
The idea of using drones for a light show is a nice one, and could be a way to help professionals make a living of this (because they're also now outlawing drones with cameras in Sweden).
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Gee, can't imagine why some cities have empty coffers.
Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.
When a drone can deliver that gut thumping feeling of a big firework going of, the streak of a burning explosive gaining altitude, the another boom of going off BEFORE the 'awww the pretty lights' moment, then I will be impressed.
For now, why don't we let the chemist geeks have their fun mixing up new surprises for us to enjoy.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Fireworks drone ads.
"Augment", a.k.a, ruin, fireworks. I already can't stand the music they try to sync up with them... "They comin' to America!" Shut up, Diamond...
Am I the only one who thinks fireworks are awesome (not the over-used definition of "awesome", but awesome) by themselves? I was lucky enough once to be very close to a show (right under it) where the crowd was small and quiet - it was like I was seeing/hearing the very extremes of what the universe is capable of. Though it was so high, after the boom, I could even hear the slightest hiss of the crackling sparkles as they fell and faded from the sky.
Then in the winter months we can eat raw marshmallows and shiver in front of a recording of a roaring fire.
I'm surprised TFA doesn't have a video. This is what they're talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
For some reason people these days always seem to want to "disrupt" things. It's not enough to create something new; you have to destroy everything that came before you to be considered a success. I think Intel's drone show looks nice - it's very serene and calm - but fireworks are explosions. This is not necessarily worse or better, it's just a different thing from fireworks, and doesn't look like it'd create the same atmosphere.
On a semi-related note, those who like fireworks might this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... It's a daytime fireworks show that uses colored smoke trails, as well as microcontrollers to synchronize detonations. Some very cool effects.
Well, as long as those drones will be filled with gunpowder in them and explode into the night, then I guess it could be done.
A drone light show, no matter how advanced and interesting it might be, will never replace fireworks.
It's just a different category of attraction.
You could put a million of drones with very strong led lights in them, make them dance around, build some interesting images, formations and whatnot... it would be plenty awesome I guess. But fireworks are all about explosions, fire, the smell, power, crescendo, how fast and furious, kinda dangerous everything is.
I pitty the pets, I really do, but you just can't replace it. I could argue though that a drone light show could be used in some occasions where fireworks are not all that much required though.
How the hell does a drone that at most would be maybe 4 feet across replicate fireworks that make explosions as much as 50 to 100 feet across (or more)? Needs a LOT more detail to make sense.
I can see it adding something to the show if the drones are carrying and able to fire conventional fireworks. Maybe re-enact the death star battle from star wars.
Yes, there is the possibility of collateral damage and death - but I'd go watch .
My deal has always been to run through a few 30-round magazines on the holidays.
What do you think the sky is for, if not to shoot at?
I can see them complimenting each other. Drones give you complex geometrical patterns, movement, and words; while traditional fireworks give you Kaboom and little sparkles.
Table-ized A.I.
Exploding all those drones is gonna be mighty expensive!
and this is basically that with drones. Also this has the potential to put the blue angels out of business.
I hate real fireworks, but this would be fun to watch
Drones at most might be able to match two of those criteria that make fireworks cool, probably more like one. What *could* be cool, though, is fireworks fired *from* drones, which gives you more height and the ability to do cool things that might not be possible from land-launched fireworks.
They did a drone show last year in Sydney at the Vivid festival. While it was cool and different, there's no way that it can replace a fireworks show. They flew impressive patterns and light shows, but had issues with wind and were very complex to setup with a couple of hundred drones.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
The attraction of fireworks is the boom not the lights. Fucking dumbasses are the same sorts who water down Halloween with shit like 'trunk or treat.'
For everyone against not having a "boom", we could just get Samsung to manufacture it.
Let's just leapfrog this innovation, and go straight to VR fireworks, where you don't even have to leave your couch. Then, you can also select whether you want the kaboom to be mild, loud, ear-splitting, or deafness-inducing.
This might be a new thing that replaces some fireworks shows, but no, while this looks cool, its novelty will not replace colorful explosions.
They should combine the drones with fireworks. The show can start with the drones falling down from the sky and the fireworks blowing them up -- kinda like Space Invaders.