Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 624 Mind Control Virtual Device
A project team discovered an electrode material with extremely superior performance among countless materials, and this news was quickly reported.

The non-invasive brain-computer interface project team quickly created a corresponding head-mounted signal collector based on this new N98 material.

This head-mounted sensor is a helmet-like frame, but with more than a dozen elastic electrodes deployed inside. These electrodes will continuously collect brainwave signals...

After undergoing specialized preliminary processing, the collected EEG signals are input into a specialized big data model for analysis and processing. This filters out some physiological noise signals and external electromagnetic signals that are not of great significance. The filtered signals are then classified and processed, and finally converted into various electronic signals that can be executed by a computer.

The principle is not too complicated; the complicated part is how to collect more and more detailed brainwave signals and perform real-time classification and processing of these massive brainwave signals.

In signal processing, this relies heavily on big data models, which is what ordinary people commonly refer to as artificial intelligence technology. In this regard, Zhiyun Group has very strong technical reserves... Artificial intelligence technology is currently Zhiyun Group's most core and most advantageous technology.

In terms of signal acquisition, this relies on signal acquisition equipment with electrode materials as the core. The reason why breakthroughs have been slow in the past is that the electrode materials are not good enough, and the collected signals are not numerous, deep, or detailed enough.

Now, with the N98 material proven to be able to collect a large amount of various brainwave signals, it represents a significant advancement in the field of signal collection.

Once these two core technologies were successfully developed, researchers couldn't wait to create the first very rudimentary prototype of a non-invasive brain-computer interface...

Soon, the researchers put on this rudimentary signal collector, a helmet-like device.

The helmet is also connected to several cables leading to a computing power unit in front, which has eight APO6000/160GB graphics cards providing core computing power.

"Activate the signal collector!"

"EEG signal acquisition and transmission have begun!"

"Signal preprocessing is fine; data is now input into the AI ​​system."

"The signal classification accuracy has reached 99.999%, meeting the predetermined data. Signal output testing will now begin."

At this moment, the experimenter sitting in front began to use brainwaves to operate the screen in front of him.

A miraculous scene unfolded. The experimenter did nothing, but the screen in front of him changed. First, a notepad application opened, and then a bunch of text appeared on it.

"Now I'm starting to type..."

The text input speed was extremely fast, with a large number of characters appearing almost instantly. Moreover, the ordinary text was mixed with some relatively complex symbols. The researchers even wrote a piece of code on the spot to demonstrate the process.

"Basic testing complete, now proceeding with robotic arm testing!"

Next, the researchers began to use EEG equipment to directly operate the robotic arm used in the experiment. The robotic arm's movements were very smooth and sensitive, and its precision was very high.

"As expected of a signal resolution close to 100%, the operational precision is almost indistinguishable from that of a human hand!"

"And it's so natural, much smoother than the robotic arm operation of the intelligent robot next door!"

"Not only that, it's also smoother than the previous bionic robotic arm!"

"The signal resolution provided by this N98 material is incredibly high!"

Xu Shenxue learned of the major breakthrough in brain-computer interface technology that very evening, and he personally called the person in charge of the technology to congratulate and encourage them.

Although brain-computer interface technology has made significant breakthroughs and solved some problems in signal collection and processing, it is still very primitive.

The human brain is an extremely complex organ, processing massive amounts of information every second. With current technology, the amount of information that can be collected and processed is still relatively limited.

Even with current human technology, if we were to collect all the neural impulses in the brain, we could only understand a small portion of them... The vast majority of signals remain incomprehensible, their meaning and function still unknown.

Therefore, although brain-computer interface technology has made significant breakthroughs, it still cannot be directly applied to the virtual helmet envisioned by Xu Shenxue... Of course, with the current level of technology, as a medical assistive device, it is still not a problem for disabled people to directly control prostheses or other electronic devices through brainwaves.

Simply put, the technology currently being developed is still a relatively primitive form of brainwave control technology.

To achieve the level of virtual reality headsets seen in science fiction novels, there are still a lot of technologies to solve, such as signal feedback... After processing external electronic signals, they are fed back to the brain through a head-mounted signal device so that the brain can receive relevant information.

Then there are still a whole host of problems to deal with. Even with the foundation of Zhiyun Group and the assistance of the scientific research system, there is still a long way to go before they can create the kind of virtual device that is straight out of a science fiction novel.

However, Xu Shenxue wasn't in a hurry... He'd take it one step at a time.

With this kind of brain-controlled device, their own virtual reality products can use this function to directly collect the human body's neural impulse signals and then feed them back into the virtual world... This way, they won't need to use a bunch of external cameras, lidar, pressure sensors, and other miscellaneous sensors to capture the user's movements.

With continued effort, we can also try to generate some simple feedback signals, such as tactile signals!
This mind control technology alone could significantly upgrade current virtual devices!

Let's develop a new type of virtual device based on neural impulse signal control and feedback, combined with a VR display and an omnidirectional treadmill.

Its performance improvement must be enormous!

As for the fully virtual devices depicted in science fiction novels, we still need to work on that. As for when they can be made, it depends not only on the efforts of researchers but also on fate.

Soon, Qu Xuewen, the president of the Virtual Devices Division, reported to Xu Shenxue that their Virtual Devices Division had developed a new generation of virtual devices based on current non-invasive brain-computer interface technology.

We are preparing to create a virtual reality device that relies on brain control and direct collection of various movement signals from the human torso.

Based on the project's progress, it is expected to be initially launched to the market in two years.

At the same time, based on non-invasive brain-computer interface technology, we will also conduct research and development on related brain-computer interface medical devices, such as making major technological upgrades to existing bionic robotic arms and launching bionic robotic arms with better performance.

At the same time, a series of brain-controlled connection interfaces were launched, enabling people to directly control various electronic devices using brainwave devices.

Xu Shenxue is also looking forward to seeing new virtual devices using brain control technology as soon as possible.

Zhiyun Group has made a major breakthrough in non-invasive brain-computer interface technology and is using this technology to conduct a series of brain control studies, and is attempting to apply it to virtual devices and assistive medical devices.

However, this news was not made public... Zhiyun Group has always disliked announcing basic technology research and development before releasing official products.

Zhuyun Group prefers to directly launch groundbreaking new products and then generate a huge publicity effect. After all, product promotion also requires careful timing.
If you just keep bragging without actually launching any products to the market, people's enthusiasm will be gradually depleted, and they may even lose interest in the end. Even if you do eventually release a product, there will be no sense of novelty or curiosity.

The same applies to non-invasive brain-computer interface technology and its derivative brain control technology... Since there are no products available yet, they are naturally being kept under wraps. When brain control virtual devices are officially released in the future, they will be announced all at once to shock the world and then rake in a huge amount of money from people all over the world.

The prospect of developing virtual devices based on brain control technology within the next few years has put Xu Shenxue in a very good mood!

He was also very satisfied with the revenue and profit performance of his various companies in the first half of this year.

As July arrived, his various companies successively released their operating reports for the second quarter of this year.

Looking at the first quarter of this year, the overall situation for the first half of the year was quite good.

In particular, the business performance of Zhuyun Group is quite good!

There's not much to say about Zhiyun Group's core business, smart terminal equipment. It's relatively stable overall, with no significant increase in sales volume. However, due to a slight increase in the average selling price, coupled with limited technological innovation and a gradual decrease in component costs, the overall gross profit margin has risen.

However, with the continuous increase in the number of smart terminals, revenue from APP content channel sharing and advertising has continued to rise.

However, the revenue and profit growth of Zhiyun Group no longer rely on the smart terminal business, but on the new three pillars: computing chips, smart robots, and virtual devices.

The continued increase in shipments of computing chips has brought substantial revenue and profits to Zhiyun Group. In the first half of this year, the gross profit from computing chips has officially surpassed that of the smart terminal business, becoming Zhiyun Group's largest source of profit.

The intelligent robot business continues to grow steadily, expanding in China and economically developed regions, while also beginning to expand into some emerging markets. Although the hardware profits in this segment are not yet substantial, the software profits are growing rapidly as the stock of intelligent robots gradually increases.

When Zhiyun Group formulated its intelligent robot operation strategy, it temporarily reduced or even gave up some hardware profits in order to pursue a faster robot penetration rate and a larger robot stock, and then relied on paid premium features to make up for the shortfall in profits.

Many functions, such as educational tutoring, childcare, elderly care, work assistance, and robot driving, require additional payment. The monthly fee varies from several hundred to several thousand yuan in China, depending on the specific function, while it is even more expensive in overseas countries.

If a smart robot costs 300 yuan per month, that's 3,600 yuan in revenue per year.

If there are one million robots in stock, the annual revenue could reach 3.6 billion.

Ten million units would be worth 36 billion!

In reality, the number of users who actually pay is more than three hundred yuan, especially in developed countries overseas.

The combined hardware and software businesses of intelligent robots have begun to contribute significantly to the revenue and profits of Zhuyun Group.

The last core business is the virtual business. The virtual hardware business is not very profitable, mainly because the chips it uses are too expensive, especially the APO graphics cards... However, the virtual devices themselves are not very profitable, but the many components they use, especially the computing chips, are very profitable.

This is actually just a difference in how profits are calculated...

On a larger scale, the virtual equipment business generates very high overall profits, but most of them are reflected in the computing chip business.

The software business within the virtual business mainly relies on revenue sharing from virtual content distribution channels and advertising.

The revenue sharing from distribution channels mainly relies on virtual games. Virtual games generate huge amounts of revenue, and their market size is growing very rapidly. Zhuyun Group can earn a lot of money directly from game revenue sharing.

In addition to advertising revenue from the software download store, the advertising business also includes various forms of advertising revenue from the large virtual social platform 'Zhiyun Virtual World'.

Zhiyun Virtual World is developed and operated simultaneously, and it is directly built into the operating system of all Zhiyun virtual devices. People will directly enter it after logging into the virtual device... This brings huge advertising value.

Zhiyun Virtual World relies on conventional advertising and cooperation with e-commerce platforms or other corporate content platforms to generate non-traditional advertising revenue by charging virtual store rental fees, virtual store design and production fees, etc. In recent years, Zhiyun Group's Zhiyun Virtual World project team has built a very flawed virtual social platform and cooperated with a large number of companies to provide these companies with product display and operation services.

The most typical example is e-commerce, such as Yihai Technology's Duohai e-commerce platform, which opened a virtual mall after joining the platform...

Hailan Auto has also opened a virtual flagship store in the Zhiyun virtual world to showcase and sell Hailan cars.

Many other companies have also opened virtual flagship stores, and high-end brands, especially luxury brands, have done so in nine out of ten.

Because every single user in today's virtual world is a group with considerable spending power...

The virtual world user group of Zhiyun Group is currently the highest quality user group.

Normally, it would be extremely difficult for these high-end brands to accurately target these users for marketing... But now, Zhiyun Group has directly integrated these users and brought them together on a virtual social platform.

That alone is enough to make a large number of high-end consumer brands around the world drool.

This explains why so many high-end brands are rushing to open so-called virtual flagship stores!

The four core businesses of Zhiyun Group are smart terminals, computing chips, smart robots, and virtual devices. Except for smart terminals, which did not see much growth, the other three businesses have grown rapidly, which has brought Zhiyun Group a lot of revenue and substantial profits.

According to past experience, Zhuyun Group's revenue and profit are usually slightly lower in the first half of the year and higher in the second half.

However, with these four core businesses plus other auxiliary and peripheral businesses, Zhiyun Group's revenue reached $460 billion in the first half of this year, with profits exceeding $130 billion.

Although revenue and profit hit record highs, after the second quarter and half-year financial reports were released, Zhuyun Group's stock price dropped by 1.8 percentage points...

It's a long-standing tradition for Zhiyun Group to see its stock price drop after releasing its financial report. As for the number of times the stock price has actually risen after the release of its financial report, it's extremely rare!

Unfortunately, there will always be some investors who optimistically overestimate the revenue and profits of Zhiyun Group, thinking that since Zhiyun Group's products are so amazing, its profits must also be very high.

I'm betting that Zhuyun Group won't burn through cash at such a high rate this year!

However, when Zhiyun Group released its financial report and found that the data did not meet the expectations of these optimistic investors, and the rate of cash burn was even faster than expected, the stock price naturally fell!

This has happened many times before, and even the capital market is used to it.

Some veteran investors in Zhuyun Group even ridicule optimistic investors who overestimate Zhuyun Group's stock price!
They are still too young and inexperienced. They simply cannot imagine how crazy those madmen at Zhiyun Group are in their R&D investment and capital expenditures in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and other fields!
(End of this chapter)