2k drones light up night sky in Shanghai to welcome new year | Hacker News Reader

2k drones light up night sky in Shanghai to welcome new year

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27 pointstartoran13 comments

I -used- to love fireworks, but over the years it dawned on me the huge negative impacts that they have have (pollution, terrifying wildlife and pets, etc) and I'm now unable to see them as much other than an extravagant, arrogant, complete waste.

While I'm aware that there are a lot of eco-costs involved in building drones, it's nice to see alternatives to fireworks - that are at the very least are reusable.

I was thinking the same thing as well. It’s very interesting that fireworks originated in china and in a way it’s now full circle

Singapore has 500 drones too! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zmpB3SEZ2Rk

Does anyone know what kind of tech is used for this and the original content?

All radio frequency communication?

What drones are used?

How do the drones learn about one another's position mid-flight?

Looks like Intel has an offering from $150k to $350k+: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/technology-innovatio...

There are many reports coming out that this was faked. People who were there posting videos of waiting for the show, and then nothing happening. I believe it as some of the animations look a bit too fast or precise to be done by real drones.

> many reports

The only thing I can find is a Reddit post saying it's fake. Got something substantial instead?

Given the Chinese previously broke the record 2 years ago with 1300 and Intel broke it again just recently with over 2000 why exactly do you think it's fake?

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/commercial/2018/5/...

   They admitted it that it was fake.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50979557

It doesn’t seem too impressive to be fake to be honest. I mean it is impressive with respect to the size but with enough care it is definitely doable.

I thought about doing this about ten years ago when our town decided to discontinue fireworks shows due to fire risk. At the time it would have been too expensive to attempt. It’s really neat to finally see this happen.

Maybe I am the only one feeling this way? These drone shows are just silly elementary level computer visual arts with a huge size.

Fireworks are visually way way better than these, and more creative, more exciting and holiday-ish.

There's definitely something to it existing at scale, in the real world, but I mostly agree.

I'd be interested to see what visuals can happen if the drones had additional props, like fog and directable light beams.

I wonder if sound from these 2k drones was deafening.

Curious too. If they’re nearby maybe so but high up in the air they may not be too loud.

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