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"What we're going to push into next is the market for translation machines and translation software." Ryan laid the groundwork for everyone first.
A translation machine was a device dedicated to providing translation services. Its appearance resembled a phone, and depending on the model, it offered voice translation, text translation, image translation, and various other functions, with prices generally ranging from a few hundred to three thousand.
In recent years, as the number of people traveling abroad kept breaking records, translation machines had developed briskly, and last year's market size had already reached four billion, with a projection to break five billion this year.
This was a big market.
And what's more, the AI translation they were making now was a perfect match for translation machines. Industry brands like Swiftvox, Searchcat, Splitone, and Netdamp were all doing neural network translation too.
The people around the conference table nodded in agreement. There really was no path better suited to them than this one at present.
Ryan looked at Hargrove. "The translation software, those of us here can handle. But translation machines involve quite a few electronic components and need to be redesigned, so we'll have to open a new group specifically to research that."
Hargrove said at once, "We could apply the mature translation-machine templates already on the market."
A translation machine was like a phone. The basic components came and went within a fixed range, so naturally there were mature template solutions available on the market.
Just use one of these template solutions, tweak the appearance, swap in a different brand name, and a translation machine was born just like that.
Of course, take these translation machines apart and their construction was identical to other brands'.
To Hargrove's suggestion, Ryan shook his head. "We can't use the market's templates. We're going to design a better solution ourselves, and I'll provide assistance on this too."
Although for a translation machine the most important thing was the translation software inside it rather than the hardware, if the hardware was poor, the results in areas like sound pickup would be terrible, and the user experience dreadful.
So even with the company's cash flow tight at the moment, Ryan didn't intend to use the market's generic templates.
Prism was a brand, and it couldn't be tarnished.
Of course, designing it themselves didn't mean designing every single part of the translation machine.
That would be sheer foolishness in today's industrial society.
They'd use the excellent, mature modules from other translation machines. It just wouldn't be a wholesale application of a template anymore.
Ryan explained the requirements to Hargrove clearly, and he immediately indicated he understood. "This isn't anything difficult. I'll get the research group set up as soon as possible."
At this point, Ryan had everyone in the conference room disperse, keeping only Hargrove behind.
He asked, "How has Argus Image been developing lately?"
Argus Image was the name of the Argus AI's software in the image-processing field.
Hargrove pulled up the latest report, projected it onto the big screen, and said, "Argus Image is still in the testing phase lately. We increased the number of test accounts again, and the number has now reached a hundred thousand accounts. We receive a massive amount of feedback every day."
"The software's users are basically professions like illustrators and graphic designers. These people use Argus Image to process at least thirty-some images a day, with an average usage duration of three and a half hours."
"A lot of people have already started growing accustomed to our software now."
"That's a solid result. Once it's refined a bit more, we can consider charging for it after a while," Ryan said.
"That's what I was thinking too," Hargrove said.
Generally speaking, charging for software would bleed off users and market share, but for Argus Image, there was no need to worry about that problem at all.
Because under the current environment, there simply were no other comparable software that could contend with it for the market.
Every one of Argus Image's functions was something other AI software on the market had already dabbled in.
Image extraction, automatic coloring.
People in the industry had long since been mining artificial intelligence's potential in these fields.
So why hadn't those AI software reached the position Argus Image held today in the image-processing field?
For no other reason than that their functions simply couldn't compare with Argus's.
This was a fatal weakness.
When your product's quality doesn't meet the mark, no one will come to mooch off it even for free.
So there was no need to worry about the competition at all.
On top of that, although some people used Argus Image to chat, it was in essence a work software, one that could enormously increase the work efficiency and speed of a specific group of people.
You needed only to look at the colorists wailing about unemployment in society right now to know it.
After a break-in period, it had absolutely reached a professional standard in the industry. Using it was equivalent to hiring a corporate drone who never knew rest and needed no overtime pay.
And the money it cost might well be less than a single month of that drone's salary.
With all that, what reason was there left not to pay?
As for the piracy problem...
Ryan and Hargrove had long since taken that into account.
Every one of Argus Image's functions required a network connection to use, which was equivalent to the user's status being checked every single time they used it.
The moment an anomaly was detected, the relevant account could be banned immediately, so piracy simply couldn't exist.
Next, Ryan discussed with Hargrove the room for improvement in Argus Image, striving to make it even better.
After that, Ryan headed to another research center within the complex, the prosthetics center.
There was a piece of work here nearing completion too.
The moment he came through the door, someone noticed him and led him into the work room.
Mason was there with the main members of his team, everyone gathered in a cluster, seemingly conducting an experiment.
"Boss, you're here!" Ryan had just walked in when Mason happened to turn his head, spotting him at once.
"Are you running an experiment right now?"
"That's right. Our prosthetic is nearing completion!" Mason was glowing with high spirits.
Ryan walked over. There in the middle of the group was a slightly callow young boy, the left leg of his trousers rolled up to reveal the new prosthetic Mason and the others had developed. Seeing Ryan approach, the boy rather excitedly called out a greeting.
Ryan greeted him back.
"This is our test volunteer, Wesley," Mason introduced from the side.
"We're carrying out the final test. If there are no problems this time, then this prosthetic can be finalized!"
Ryan was a little surprised to hear it. "That's pretty fast."
He'd assumed that without his help, Mason and the others would have to wait at least until the next new year. He hadn't expected them to put together a new type of prosthetic in under a year.
Mason laughed. "The company's developing so fast now. We can't fall too far behind, can we?"
He turned to look at Wesley. "Wesley, walk a few steps and show everyone."
"Okay."
The volunteer Wesley nodded and began walking around the work room, going up and down stairs along the way, and even stepping onto a treadmill specifically for testing, jogging on it at six kilometers an hour.
The entire sequence of movements was extremely smooth, showing none of the uneven-gait phenomenon that people with leg prosthetics installed generally had.
"The results are great."
Watching Wesley's jogging posture on the treadmill, Ryan was very satisfied with the prosthetic's performance.
Mason walked over to introduce it. "This prosthetic's shell is built entirely from titanium alloy, with wireless brain control. The whole unit weighs about five kilograms, but through the knee joint's flexion support and the foot plate's motor propulsion, it can lighten the weight the wearer bears while walking, so it feels like only about three kilograms. At the same time, the whole unit is waterproof, the sole can have an anti-slip rubber mesh fitted, and the battery life is eleven hours..."
Listening to Mason's account, Ryan gained a fuller understanding of this prosthetic.
"What do you think its biggest drawback is?" he asked.
Mason hesitated, then answered, "Probably that the cost is too high. The projected sale price will have to reach over a hundred and eighty thousand for us to have any hope of recouping."
To this price, Ryan actually felt it was within an acceptable range.
After all, this prosthetic had basically been independently developed by Mason and the others, unlike Triton-1, where he'd had a hand in every step, which had driven the R&D cost extremely low.
And leg prosthetics, just by their sheer bulk, obviously cost more than arm prosthetics for certain.
Besides that, leg prosthetics were different from arm prosthetics. Aside from walking, the legs had no other functions for life and work.
So after a leg disability, an ordinary person's requirements for a prosthetic weren't high. As long as it could walk, that was enough, or a wheelchair was acceptable too.
This also destined it to not have a very large installation volume, so a slightly higher price didn't matter.
Ryan looked at the prosthetic on Wesley's leg and asked, "Have you thought about a name for it?"
Mason was taken aback. "That, I really haven't..."
Over this past year or so, his mind had been on work every day, even in the shower. He truly hadn't given the prosthetic's naming any thought.
"Then let me come up with one." Ryan thought for a moment.
"Let's call it Apollo."
"Here's hoping it can let people chase the sun once again."
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