<h4>Chapter 1105 We Don“t Care</h4>
The Shanghai International Convention and Exhibition Center.
This was where the Phantom virtual reality system productunch was held.
This wasn’t Elon Musk’s first rodeo.
He stood in the venue lobby with his invitation letter in his hand. He suddenly noticed an acquaintance.
This was none other than Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook.
A while ago, Facebook liquidated its subsidiarypany Oculus,ying off thousands of employees. This caused quite a lot of discussion on the Inte.
He wasn’t surprised to see Elon here at all.
These two were likely to bepetitors with one another.
“I didn’t expect to see you here.” Elon reached out his hand and said, “This is a lucky day.”
After Mark Zuckerberg shook Elon’s hand, he spoke.
“Same here, nice to see you.”
Elon: “It looks like you’re not in a good mood.”
Mark said, “Aren’t you the same?”
People in Los Angeles had already begun protesting against the Phantom system. Even though Mark Zuckerberg wanted to cooperate with Star Sky Technology, he had to tread carefully.
He didn’t expect Star Sky Technology to not only ignore the recent public controversies but host a productunch instead.
This really surprised him.
Hosting aunch conference meant they would undoubtedly be at the center of public attention.
The reporters would definitely not let them off the hook easily.
At least not the foreign reporters.
“Haha, I’m doing fine,” Elon smiled and said. “Even though I’m interested in virtual reality technology, it’s only a hobby. Maybe virtual reality is important for Facebook, but it doesn’t affect Te and Space-X.”
This was true.
For Elon Musk, this technology was only a profit-generating machine. He wasn’t as desperate as Zuckerberg in getting his hands on the technology.
Mark looked at Elon’s gloating face and didn’t say anything. He turned around and walked toward the venue.
Elon didn’t say anything. He shrugged and also walked toward the venue.
The productunch was about to begin.
One thing he had inmon with Zuckerberg was that they both wanted to know what Star Sky Technology had to say...
...
The crowd gathered at the press conference.
Among the attendees were CEOs of well-known technologypanies, big names from academia, or media journalists.
Chen Yushan, CEO of Star Sky Technology, walked on to the stage and announced the beginning of the productunch.
Surprisingly, this female CEO did not seem to care about the recent controversies on the Inte. Rather, she focused on the Phantom system.
There was going to be a content grading system for the virtual realitywork, as well as a new experimental n.
ording to the female CEO, Star Sky Technology would establish a virtual realitywork grading system, that determined the signals that the user could receive from the neural demodtor, based on the user’s age and choosing.
Basically, users under the age of 18 would not be able to receive inappropriate content. Users above the age of 18, subject to localws and regtions, could enable inappropriate content.
On the other hand, in order to improve the Phantom system machine learning algorithm and better identity-appropriate content, Star Sky Technology had announced theunch of their “Master God” n. They were going to recruit 5-20 people from all over the world. They were going to be testers that helped the Phantom System with algorithmic deep learning.
Chen Yushan did not disclose the specific experiment n.
After all, that wasn’t the main point of the conference.
After she briefly exined the situation, she cleared her throat and spoke to the audience.
“Moreover, I understand there have been some false rumors circting online, as well as concerns from the public.
“From a scientific perspective, virtual reality is absolutely a safe technology. It is like having a second pair of eyes, it’s only a tool for us to receive external signals, it cannot rece our thoughts.
“Also, everyone has the freedom to choose to adopt this technology. As an ethicalpany, we serve the future of humanity, providing more choices to the people.
“The user has the right to make the final decision.
“That is our response to the false rumors about the virtual realitywork. Next, let’s talk about the focus of this conference...”
Zuckerberg was sitting in the crowd. He looked at the CEO of Star Sky Technology and frowned.
This wasn’t an unusual response to public rumors.
It answered the public’s questions and provided a solution.
But is the public going to trust the technology? Will this convince otherpanies to ept the new reality?
It seems like I have underestimated this technology...
Honestly, he was quite pessimistic about the way Star Sky Technology handled the negative publicity.
However, the CEO on stage didn’t seem to care at all. She continued to speak, “This is ourpany’s development strategy.
“We will divide our global business into eight regions and establish supeputing centers in each region, which provide virtual realityworkputing services. We will expand the virtual realitywork bandwidth based on the size of the supeputing centers in each region.
“The first location of the supeputing center has been selected to be at Jinling, China. It will provide virtual realityworkputing power for East Asia.
“As for other regions, we wee high-techpanies to join us to promote the globalization of the virtual realitywork.
“Of course, if you guys are not interested, we understand.
“After all, the future doesn’t serve anyone, only a portion of people. We understand if our western friends decide to go against their own free trade policies.”
There was amotion in the audience.
What is that supposed to mean?
Star Sky Technology does not care about the markets outside of East Asia.
They’re telling the west that they don’t care?
It seems like they’re too cocky about their technology!
The western reporters carrying cameras were stunned.
“This is... their official response? What are they doing?”
“Are they crazy?”
The entrepreneurs in the venue were also stunned.
However, they were shocked by something else.
Elon stared at the stage, his eyes sparkled with excitement.
Even though, like Zuckerberg, he wasn’t fond of the way Star Sky Technology responded to the public rumors, this was amazing news for the businessmen in the virtual reality field.
Like most Silicon Valley CEOs had spected, Star Sky Technology did not n onpeting with the downstream industrial chain. They nned on foregoing their customer-facing business and only serve as a cloudputing provider for otherpanies.
This meant that if the virtual realitywork came to America,panies in the Phantom ecosystem would be able to take a piece of the pie.
Maybe even a big piece.
“They are crazy...”
Zuckerberg’s eyes shed with excitement.
He finally understood what the real trump card of Star Sky Technology was.
Even though he didn’t want to admit this, the Phantom system had nopetition, at least in the short term. Regardless of whether or not otherpanies were willing to ept this reality, the Phantom system couldn’t be reced.
It was easy to stop this monopoly; they just had to ban this technology from their countries.
However, once the virtual realitywork matured, Americanpanies would want to enter this market...
Regardless, Facebook shouldn’t miss this opportunity to revolutionize the Inte.
Mark Zuckerberg made up his mind. He had to get a chance to speak with Star Sky Technology after the conference.
...
After the Star Sky Technology conference, high techpanies went crazy, so did the western media outlets.
Thepanies were going crazy because of the announcement that Star Sky Technology was looking to find overseas partners, while the media was crazy because...
They were being ignored.
That’s right.
Completely ignored.
Whether it was the criticism from well-known psychologists on the CNN show or anti-virtual reality protests on the streets of New York, Star Sky Technology seemed impervious to everything.
After theunch, Andrew, a well-known CNN reporter, expressed his resentment at Star Sky Technology’s response, or rather, theirck of response. He furiously spoke into the camera.
“I have never seen such an arrogantpany. They don’t care about the people at all! All they care about is selling their fancy technology. From now on, I will boycott Star Sky Technology! I hope everyone will join me and defeat this evilpany!”
Andrew spoke in a passionate tone.
However, ideas were beautiful, but reality was often cruel.
Star Sky Technology was not only a productionpany, but it was also an intellectual propertypany.
Obviously, it was easy to boycott Star Sky Technology...
They just had to remove the lithium-sulfur batteries from their phones and electric vehicles, refuse to use wireless charging stations, boycott the carbon-based chips made by American semiconductorpanies, protest against the fusion power station in California, which used superconducting materials, and refuse to use clean nuclear energy...
That was all they had to do to remove Star Sky Technology from their lives.
After the productunch, CNN released flippant reports.
However, something happened after that, which shocked the entire western media...
Everyone was surprised.
The public opinion on social media tforms such as Facebook and Twitter was not what they had imagined.
The people were still protesting.
But in addition to the current protests, the newly born opinions were not supporting the boycott against some kind of evil brainwashing by Star Sky Technology.
Instead, people expressed their frustration on how Star Sky Technology didn’t announce a n to expand the virtual realitywork to their countries. Users wanted this technology as soon as possible.
On the other hand, users in the East Asia region were ecstatic.
The excitement and enthusiasmpletely overwhelmed the negativements.
Even though the supeputing center in Jinling had not beenpleted yet, the virtual realitywork was slowly bing a reality.
Many high-techpanies held a neutral position, and social media tforms such as Facebook had begun taking the initiative to reduce the protesters’ voices.
It was as if they had reached a secret agreement with the Chinese.
However, that wasn’t the real scary part.
What made the traditional western media worried, or even scared, was that the people did not care about their take on the technology.
They were losing their influence.
They were losing their credibility status.
The flocks of sheep that used to be manipted by them were now ignoring them...