novelNorth American VR Technology Is Undeveloped
| ← Ch.1174 | Ch.1176 → |
Consumers weren't the only ones that were going crazy.
Across the Pacific Ocean and all the way in Silicon Valley, a group of people wept as they watched the "mayhem" across the ocean.
Countless Americans flew to China to attend the press conference. Over the past few days, half of the content on Facebook and Twitter were regarding the HV-1.
There was no doubt that if this technology was introduced to the States, it would set off an Internet revolution. More than 90% of Internet users would be willing to pay for this fairly-price technology!
Inside the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Mark Zuckerberg's heart was racing as watched his secretary deliver him a report document.
He was triggered and jealous at the same time.
At the end of last year, they completely abandoned their virtual reality development business, Oculus, and less than a year later, the virtual reality business was booming.
Seeing the sensation the virtual reality technology had caused in the Chinese market, as well as the envious American consumers, it was impossible for Mark to not be jealous.
He heard a door knock.
Mark Zuckerberg closed the report in his hands and told his secretary to make him a cup of coffee. He cleared his throat and said, "Come in."
The door opened. A middle-aged man with gold-rimmed glasses and thin hair walked in.
"I don't understand what you mean, " the man said as he walked up to Mark Zuckerberg. He placed his hands on the table and excitedly said, "The HV-1 helmet has achieved success in the Asian market. It proves that there is a huge market for virtual reality devices. But you laid off our VR research and development? What were you thinking?"
This man was none other than Dr. Sanjadi, the chief technology officer for Oculus. Ten years ago, he and the research and development team of Oculus were bought out by Facebook.
What happened over the past year or so infuriated him.
The entire Ru0026D department was laid off, and Oculus was an empty shell of its former glorious self. Even though the Oculus company structure remained intact, it only held a few worthless patents and occasionally sold some of their "ancient" VR headsets.
"Calm down."
Mark smiled and handed Dr. Sanjadi a cup of water. After Sanjadi took a sip, Mark spoke calmly.
"If I give you a year of time, how confident are you at beating Star Sky Technology, bypassing their patents, and use the original neural interface device you guys developed to dominate the American market?"
Sanjadi hesitated for a second.
Even though he wanted to remain confident, under the intense gaze of his boss, he broke. He went silent for a while before speaking.
"... It would be difficult."
Even though he didn't want to admit this, it was the truth.
If the gap were smaller, they would have a chance of catching up. However, none of the companies in Silicon Valley had even come close to competing with the Phantom technology by Star Sky Technology.
In fact, there was no hope at all.
Forget about the hardware, they didn't have access to the software at all. All of the calculations were done in the cloud. If they wanted to create a similar system, they would have to hack into the server.
A company that wanted to achieve success in the virtual reality world only had two options. They either had to give up or they had to join Star Sky Technology and adhere to their standards of the Phantom system.
"But... Are we just going to watch the Chinese people steal this market under our noses?"
The secretary came back with the coffee.
Mark smiled and took the coffee from his secretary's hands. He took a sip before speaking.
"It's impossible for us to take over the entire market; sooner or later, they will enter the American market. We have to seize the opportunity and take a piece of the market first. I understand your worries, but we are too behind on VR technology, it's not wise to go head-on with them right now... After all, social media is our core business? Right, Sanjadi?"
Sandaji gulped. He wanted to say something but decided not to.
In the beginning, they agreed to be bought out by Facebook because they believed that Facebook would lead Oculus to become a leader in the VR technology space.
But now, CEO Zuckerberg had turned on them, cutting them off from the technology they had been researching for years.
Even though Sandaji understood why Mark would do this, this kind of ending still made him feel a little infuriated.
Mark looked at the report document on the table and suddenly spoke.
"I heard that the Phantom system has a large reliance on network speed?"
"... I think so, after all, the Phantom system is dependent on cloud computing technology, " Sandaji said. He hesitated for a second and said, "The Huawei HV-1 helmet mainly uses HiSilicon's own communication band. This is optimized for their own routers and other hardware devices."
Mark rubbed his chin; his eyes suddenly lit up.
"What if we can help them penetrate the North American market?"
"No way!" Sanjadi had a weird look on his face as he said, "Communication hardware is a sensitive technology. There's no way the Ministry of Commerce will agree. Even if they do, the White House and Congress will do everything they can to stop China's communication technology from entering the States."
"I know it's difficult, but... it's not impossible? This is an opportunity for us to keep up with the changes in the world. Do you want to watch us fall behind?" Mark said as he tapped on the table. He continued, "If we can't do it ourselves, we need help."
He suddenly remembered a phone call he had.
The phone call with a wealthy man.
Of course, not only did he have money, but he was also the new manager of the Boston Financial Group.
Mark Zuckerberg knew that this person was a huge player in the financial and political circles. This man had a huge network of people and resources...
Even though Mark had only exchanged business cards with him in real life, it seemed like this man was interested in technology. There might be a chance for them to work together.
This was a good opportunity.
Mark began to get excited.
"Just leave this to me, just do your own job.
"Oculus's future business will be focused on producing virtual reality hardware, we will adopt the Star Sky Technology standards...
"As for the cooperation side, I will talk to them myself."
...
A million helmets sold out in one day. The single day's turnover of 12 billion yuan shocked Wall Street.
However, if anyone thought that the 12 billion yuan of revenue in a single day was impressive, that would mean they did not know a single thing about Huawei.
In fact, the HV-1 helmet was only one part of Huawei's strategy around virtual reality technology. Even though they were already profitable selling hardware, it was nowhere near their biggest revenue stream.
What really made them money was the carbon-based communication baseband used in the HV-1 helmet, as well as the neural demodulator, which was only compatible with the Phantom system.
The only place that could produce this hardware was the Jiangcheng semiconductor industrial park. Even Xiaomi, which had yet to start selling their helmets, could only produce their hardware in the Jiangcheng industrial park as well.
This industrial park would bring them hundreds of billions in market capitalization. Even though they had to pay patent fees to Star Sky Technology, the revenue was more than enough for them to make a profit...
While the world was going crazy over the Phantom system launch, Lu Zhou, the "father" of virtual reality technology, remained calm and low-key.
Even though Lu Zhou received a huge amount of notifications and messages on social media, he did not respond to anyone.
In fact, he wasn't deliberately avoiding anyone, he simply did not check his phone.
Because he was in his laboratory, tinkering with a little gadget...
Even though this gadget might not be as amazing as virtual reality technology...
But this gadget might impact and revolutionize the entire information technology industry...
| ← Ch. 1174 | Ch. 1176 → |