flyfire

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  • MIT's Flyfire paints images in the sky using micro helicopters, is apparently top-secret

    by 
    Tim Stevens
    Tim Stevens
    02.19.2010

    Micro helicopters, the kind that fit in the palm of your hand (and sometimes spread holiday cheer) are huge fun -- and hugely frustrating. Have you ever tried to get one to hover in place next to another? Impossible! MIT thinks it can do that, not with just two but thousands of the little beggars all hovering in harmony as part of a project called Flyfire. By using LED-equipped drones the project pledges to build free-floating 3D displays, endowing them with enough smarts and positional awareness to organize themselves into an airborne canvas. It sounds deliciously exciting and challenging, yet for some reason the school has decided you aren't to know about it, pulling its concept video and website offline. We can only imagine there's a government agency involved here, possibly trying to stem the virulent spread of robo-socialism, but we invite you to leave your own conspiracy theories in comments. Update: You can take your tinfoil hats off, the site and the video are both back online! We have the goods embedded after the break.