Rio Olympics Will Be First Sporting Event Watched By 'Eye In The Sky' Drone Cameras (fastcompany.com) 33
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:1)
Yes but what about fire?
Not sharp. Less hard than a rock. Lame.
Hopefully high enough to watch the crime too (Score:2, Funny)
The real event will be all the looting / kidnapping going on around the events.
Re:Hopefully high enough to watch the crime too (Score:4, Informative)
Not to mention livestreaming of the explosive diarrhea and vomiting competitions
http://www.chron.com/olympics/... [chron.com]
Will not be the first... (Score:2, Interesting)
Rio Olympics Will Be First Sporting Event .....
Bul lshit
and what's that ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Yet another reason not to go (Score:2, Insightful)
Not that Zika Virus, and the general shittyness of Rio isnt enough reason. now we have privately sponsored big brother
So, the Question is (Score:3)
Will this camera footage be a part of the NBC Broadcast? That would make some epic footage!
Re: (Score:2)
only the taped delayed and edited to shit ver.
Re: So, the Question is (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
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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.
THERE! (Score:1)
"That Dude with the phone just tweeted #Rio2016, launch the rockets!!"
Can we get that feed? NBC sucks! (Score:3)
Can we get that feed? NBC sucks!
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@NBCDelayed . Plenty of comedy last time. Hoping for the same this time :-)
Remember they told us . . . (Score:2)
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normalization (Score:4, 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.
Well... (Score:2)
the drones can have the Olympics, what a waste of time and money for a fascist organization like the IOC....
Olympics Losing it's Panache (Score:2)
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 cele