Top of the big era

The most important scientific research direction of Ziweixing is artificial intelligence. In this field, Ziweixing can proudly say that it is among the best in the world.

In order to do this well, Ziweixing has a long-term and in-depth strategic cooperation with Tsinghua University. Some time ago, it also reached a series of cooperation with Oxford University, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Chinese and Hong Kong Science and Technology. The main direction is artificial intelligence.

In addition, Ziweixing has artificial intelligence research laboratories in Hangcheng, Pengcheng, Yangcheng and the capital of China, and will also set up branches in Yucheng and Chang'an.

Lu Qi is the top artificial intelligence expert. With his efforts, Ziweixing established a research institute in Silicon Valley and has successfully established four artificial intelligence-related laboratories, namely the cognitive computing laboratory and the artificial intelligence experiment. laboratory, deep learning laboratory and robotics laboratory.

In the future, artificial intelligence will become more and more integrated into people's lives and improve social efficiency. Intelligent advertising push, AI face changing, intelligent photo retouching, speech recognition, image recognition, as well as more cutting-edge fields such as autonomous driving and AI pharmaceuticals.

However, Zhou Buqi had already made plans.

Artificial intelligence is a software technology.

For ordinary people and many big leaders, they look down on this kind of "soft power". What is highly respected in China is the kind of "hard-core technology" of industrial Sparta, that is, what is visible and tangible. Hardware products.

Using the powerful computing power of artificial intelligence to coordinate and arrange the national logistics system, how much social turnover consumption can be saved? This is such a powerful technology, but it is difficult for laymen to understand.

In other words, Ziweixing’s core artificial intelligence technology direction is a bit thankless and not easy to be understood by the outside world.

Zhou Buqi wants to solve this matter.

To make artificial intelligence visible and tangible, Ziweixing's world-class technology must be deeply integrated into the lives of ordinary people, so that it can gain wider recognition.

The solution given is the intelligent assistant Rokid created by Dr. Chu Mingming, a graduate of Berkeley University, from the Hangzhou Branch of Ziweixing Research Institute.

In the long term, Rokid can talk to users, answer questions, control IoT systems through voice, and more. You can install Rokid on your mobile phone, or you can design a Rokid speaker specifically.

This is the approach adopted by domestic Internet companies in previous generations.

Not satisfactory.

There are a lot of smart speakers made, but even the Baidu speakers with the best user experience have not sold much, and the market feedback has been relatively flat.

It’s just a speaker, what’s the big deal?

How difficult can the technology be?

There are dozens of smart speakers on the market, none of which are worthy of praise.

There is no way, the threshold for speakers is too low, and there are too many fake ones.

Any small company can manufacture speakers through outsourcing. Then download some free intelligent speech algorithms from the open source platform, install them, and a smart speaker is made!

It is impossible for users to distinguish the artificial intelligence technology capabilities that exist in several dimensions behind low-end smart speakers and high-end smart speakers.

Therefore, smart speakers can only be used as an alternative.

When Zhou Buqi builds the Internet, he must make something even more remarkable than his previous achievements, and create some high-threshold industrial Spartan, hard-core technology artificial intelligence products that make people shout shocked at first sight!

The answer is a robotics lab set up in Silicon Valley.

He wants to make a robot and replace the speaker with a robot!

A robot that can move has far better functions than a speaker. For example, it can have a camera for intelligent recognition. When guests come to your home, you can identify and record them, you can even pick up couriers and takeaways, and you can also automatically turn on video recording mode to preserve evidence.

The robot is a truly intelligent electronic pet that can have unlimited imagination.

The disadvantage is that the technical difficulty of robots is too high.

Zhou Buqi assigned the task to Shen Xiangyang, and neither party had much confidence. This Sony internal research material provided by Ono Consulting Firm allowed Shen Xiangyang to discover the opportunity.

The next day, Zhou Buqi was invited to do research at Ziweixing Research Institute.

Mainly in the field of artificial intelligence.

It focuses on demonstrating the growth of Rokid.

Now Rokid has fully implemented the text communication function. You can send security verification text messages, weather text messages and blessing text messages to users, and you can text chat with users on the Helo side.

There are still many problems, but this feature is already widely used, and the more data collected, the more possibilities for improvement.

The new research topic is voice communication, which is very difficult and the probability of error is high. Zhou Buqi said a few words one after another, but Rokid's performance was not very good.

This made a young tester a little anxious, so he went to demonstrate in person and said loudly into the microphone: "Rokid, search XXX with a micro-click!"

This bastard boy has no choice but to search for the leader.

Unexpectedly, Rokid really responded this time, answering in a crisp voice: "According to relevant laws and regulations, the content you searched for will not be displayed in full."

Everyone burst into laughter.

Zhou Buqi gave a simple speech, saying that he hoped that everyone could overcome the difficulties. The results were gratifying and the direction was right. If you persist, you will definitely see spring!

Then, they went to Shen Xiangyang's office together.

"What did you see in Sony's materials?"

"Don't worry, I found a few videos, take a look."

"oh?"

Zhou Buqi walked around behind his desk and sat down unceremoniously in his place. Like a secretary, Shen Xiangyang opened the folder and played the few downloaded short videos.

The first video was shocking.

The picture was very blurry, and it looked like it was from several years ago, but the content of the video was shocking. It was like the kickoff of a baseball game.

However, this time the kicker was not a celebrity, but a robot.

The robot ran all the way to the center of the field, caught the baseball, held it, and then threw it in a certain direction. The kickoff was successful! The whole audience cheered!

Zhou Buqi opened his eyes wide and turned to look at him, "What kind of robot is this?"

Shen Xiangyang said: "Qrio developed by Sony was used as a kick-off event for a Major League Baseball game in 2005."

"2005..."

"There's more, let's continue reading."

Shen Xiangyang started playing the next short video again.

This is even more exaggerated.

There are Qrio robots conducting band performances, Qrio robots doing Tai Chi, and Qrio robots doing funny dances. The robot is only about half a meter tall, but its feet and hands are very flexible and its balance is excellent.

Zhou Buqi watched a few videos and admired them very much, "When it comes to robotics technology, Japan is number one in the world, even better than the United States."

Shen Xiangyang nodded, "Qrio was born in 2005, but as of today, it is still the only running robot in the world."

"Run? That's not enough, is it?"

Zhou Buqi has visited IBM, Microsoft, and Google, and their robots also ran very happily.

Shen Xiangyang explained: "It's different. Other robots walk fast, but they don't run. Running means that both feet can leave the ground at the same time."

"this……"

Even if Zhou Buqi is a pure layman, he can understand how complicated the technology is.

Shen Xiangyang said: "The most important thing for a robot is stability. It cannot fall. In order to prevent this, when other robots walk, they must make sure that one foot is lifted and the other foot is kept firmly. on the ground to maintain balance. But Qrio is different. It can lift the back foot before the front foot touches the ground, so it can really run."

Zhou Buqi nodded.

Joking aside, his satire on Sony was limited to its business model and ability to make money. From a hard-core technology perspective, Sony is even more powerful than Apple.

This robot is really shocking.

But what does this old Shen mean?

I gave you the materials with the intention of taking advantage of Sony's illness to cut his flesh and drink his blood. But, isn’t this Qrio robot too exaggerated?

Even if this is not Sony's heart and brain, it is still an important body organ.

Sony is just sick, but not dying yet. It is unrealistic to want to tear it into pieces!

Zhou Buqi frowned, "This robot is very tempting, but there's nothing we can do about it, right?"

Shen Xiangyang smiled and said, "Didn't you realize that these are all old videos?"

"Well, the picture is blurry."

"All the videos are from 2005."

"Um."

"The Qrio robot was born in 2005."

"So what?"

Zhou Buqi didn't quite understand what he meant.

Shen Xiangyang took a photo of the thick stack of copies of materials on his desk and said, "According to the materials, Qrio is one of the three concept projects launched by Sony's former president Nobuyuki Idei when he was in office. 05 Launched in 2017, it is indeed amazing, but it is difficult to commercialize.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Sony's technology is very good, but their market vision is too bad. If you give me this robot, I can do something good."

Shen Xiangyang said: "In 2005, due to Sony's poor performance and continuous losses, Nobuyuki Idei retired early and he stepped down."

"Oh yes!"

Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows, then his heart shook, and he vaguely realized something.

"Robot" is a conceptual project that burns money and has no possibility of profit. If it is a normal period, the company will make a lot of profits, and it will indeed need to use part of the funds to pay for the dream and do some ideal research and development.

But at that time, Sony's stock price collapsed and it suffered losses for consecutive years. Its MP3, personal computer, home game console, and television businesses were all hammered by the market, and Idei resigned sadly.

Where does Sony have the extra money to do research on this kind of robot that looks like a meat bun beating a dog?

Sure enough, Shen Xiangyang confirmed his guess the next moment, "After Nobu Dei stepped down, the new management quickly made strategic and business adjustments. The first business victim was the three projects promoted by Nobu Dei. Concept projects, robots, robot dogs, etc. have all been abandoned.”

Zhou Buqi took a deep breath, "This is a project abandoned by Sony!"

Shen Xiangyang said: "Yes, I gave up in 2005. Howard Stringer, the current head of Sony, is a media person. He used to be a reporter in the entertainment industry. He has no interest in technology at all. He has no interest in everything about Sony. Strategic design and business adjustments are all centered around making money and stock prices. He is a typical American professional manager's thinking."

Zhou Buqi's eyes flashed, "It seems like there is a chance!"

Shen Xiangyang said with a smile: "Ziweixing has been split up, there is indeed a chance!"