What the hell is a private enterprise?

Chapter 526 Someone Cheated!

What is the RAND Corporation?
This is no ordinary consulting firm or information intermediary; it is a legitimate organization established to advise the Imperial military. It simply downplayed its relationship with the Federation in the later stages, but in reality, it has considerable influence over the Federation.

Tang Wen only thought about learning from Jia Laoban and throwing all of Lao Mi's funds into a bottomless pit. He never thought about obtaining think tank status. Wouldn't that be getting official recognition from the empire and standing on their side?
After accepting this absurd scene in disbelief, he could only leave with the other person.

……

"What? You're not going back?"

Zhao Hande had originally planned to bring Tang Wen back to China with him, but after meeting the president, the latter said helplessly:
"I'll be staying here for at least another week, and soon important federal officials will be coming to listen to the local area network and mobile terminal ecosystem again. Finally, I'll have to find time to write a planning report before I can leave."

That think tank said they should make the internet economy a development strategy for the new century. If it really achieves its goals after 2000, they might award me a membership in the US National Academy of Engineering.

"..."

Zhao Hande opened his mouth, hesitated, then stopped himself, and finally, under Tang Wen's bewildered gaze, tightly grasped his hand:
"Xiao Tang, I understand even if you switch your allegiance from Southeast Asia to the United States, but you must return to China if you have the chance. Although China is a bit backward, we are still capable of developing the internet, and we absolutely need your oversight."

Tang Wen: Subway, elderly people, mobile phones o(>﹏<)o
"What nonsense are you talking about, Lao Zhao? What are you thinking?"

However, Zhao Hande was already feeling a bit regretful. At first, he didn't believe that handheld computers could change the world, but after listening to Tang Wen's press conference, he felt that it might actually be interesting.

Afterwards, I saw various American tech gurus, veteran investors, and economists frantically analyzing the mobile internet economy, but I couldn't find many opinions that could shake its feasibility.

Even the US now values ​​this highly; it's a prestigious title, equivalent to a senior advisor to a think tank and a "quasi-academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering." No one born in mainland China has yet obtained the title of foreign academician of the Empire while maintaining their Chinese citizenship!

An empire may be corrupt, but it is certainly not stupid, which shows that Tang Wen is a true talent!
In an effort to retain him, Zhao Hande even patted his chest and said:

"Don't worry, when we get back to China, we'll also be implementing MDA and promoting city-wide local area networks!"

Tang Wen covered his forehead, knowing that it was impossible to explain now, and he could only explain it slowly after returning to China.

Ironically, after praising the handheld computer, the IAA even went so far as to apologize to him indirectly, specifically showing him the news of Detective Jim committing suicide at home after being exposed for embezzlement.

Even the empire attaches great importance to it, so it's reasonable for Zhao Hande to believe it. If the handheld computer scam could be exposed so quickly, it would be a disservice to Tang Wen's brain that he burned out.

This isn't actually a scam; it's just that it was created at the wrong time and requires an additional layer of insurance.
If the financial bubble doesn't arrive early or be delayed, then we need to rush to develop smartphones before the MDA ecosystem is fully established; otherwise, super handheld computers might actually replace smartphones.

It would be impossible for Steve Jobs to bring the iPhone to market in 2007; Tang would have wanted it to be released by around 2000 at the earliest.

And this timing was carefully calculated:
The original world line for 3G technology, a crucial support for smartphones, was released in 2000. However, with significant investment, it shouldn't be a problem to develop it a year ahead of schedule, especially since they are already planning and preparing for Qualcomm's CDMA.
The key chips aren't particularly difficult to obtain. Once the shipyard reaches version 14.3 and unlocks the modern warship tech tree, it will be easy to get them. Furthermore, ARM is currently on the verge of going public, and given Gadgetzan's size, they can find a way to acquire some of the technology.

And the most, most, most crucial point:
With Tang Wen's intervention, the MDA program will be a money-burning furnace, at most reaching the city pilot stage, and then it will be indefinitely delayed due to costs and difficulties in promotion.

The smartphone plan was just a safety net; MDA should have been crushed by the bubble caused by its massive deficits long before that.

Zhao Hande quickly flew back to China, while Tang Wen also boarded a plane, but his destination was California. He wanted to hold several conferences with Shi Juzhu in Silicon Valley, especially to let the latter understand carefully the future deception of Company X.

Just as his plane took off, a transoceanic flight from Japan landed simultaneously. Johnson hurriedly disembarked, got into a car, and rushed to the Naval Intelligence Department. ...

The recovery of the Birmingham was nothing special for Tang Wen. Before coming to Peanut Village, he could use the California White Fleet as a teleportation point. After the Kosomoyets was in place, he casually took it back to the port in Antarctica.

But for the monitoring room overseeing the Birmingham, things were in an uproar.

“It was late at night, around noon. As required, we had two duty officers on duty. The camera was suddenly obscured by the mud and sand that was kicked up, which lasted for about 15 seconds. After that, the Birmingham disappeared.”

Johnson listened to Bean's account with a grave expression. In front of him were three crucial photos from the time of the incident.

Due to limited transmission capacity, static images were updated only once every ten seconds. There were only three images from the discovery of the anomaly to the disappearance of the submarine, and the resolution was very poor.

The underwater lighting is already terrible. During the day, you can barely see more than ten meters, but at night you can only rely on dim light and infrared cameras to capture images. Searchlights are not allowed to be used because of secrecy.

Even with this, you can't take many pictures. You need to process the photos and stretch the exposure to the extreme before you can distinguish various objects and plants and animals.

"We have two underwater vehicles, both of which are completely obscured by silt?"

"That's how it is, so the scope is very large."

"Where's the emergency recording?"

"I'm sorry, there wasn't enough time."

Binn was somewhat embarrassed. The underwater camera's recording switch required a manual command, but no one had considered that everything would be completed in just over 10 seconds. It took seven or eight seconds from the time the duty officer reacted and pressed the switch to the time it took for the underwater camera to receive the command and start focusing. In the end, nothing of value was captured.

After that, the original location of the submersible Birmingham was just a patch of crushed coral.

"Ten seconds, ten seconds to take away a submarine weighing several thousand tons."

Johnson closed his eyes, mumbled a few words, and then asked:
"Is it possible that the monitor or wiring has been tampered with?"

"The duty room has complete surveillance cameras, and I have checked them many times."

"No, no, no, I meant Hans."

"This... is impossible. The monitoring room is connected by a dedicated network."

"But I know that Prism Building's network was recently hacked by a few young hackers. Go check it out. Hiring a few audacious computer experts is much easier than making a submarine suddenly disappear."

Johnson stared at the several abstractly processed photos, muttering to himself:

“If we are really fighting against a guy like that, then God must be letting Hans cheat.”

(End of this chapter)