Chapter 787: MR Device
Chen Mo wasn't paying attention to how many Game of the Year awards The Last of Us had won. He was currently in Zhou Jiangping's office, discussing new equipment with Zhou Jiangping and the designers from Lehui.
"These are three new design drafts our designers have come up with. What do you think, CEO Chen?" Zhou Jiangping asked.
Chen Mo shook his head. "None of them work. The positioning isn't clear enough."
The three designers were all a bit confused.
They had just received Zhou Jiangping's assignment to design a new device for a small-scale consciousness reading apparatus. Time was tight, so each of the three had designed a device and brought it to Zhou Jiangping for review.
The designs from these three designers were largely similar, as the current design had certain inherent limitations.
The new small-scale consciousness reading device was slightly larger than a bottle cap from a sports drink, with a similar thickness. Moreover, there was a restriction: it had to be pressed tightly against the user's head to accurately read consciousness signals. So, creating a mind-controlled phone was out of the question.
The thinking of these three designers was basically the same: portability.
After all, Lehui was a manufacturer specializing in phones, so the designers more or less favored simple, convenient designs. Among the three design proposals, two were head-mounted devices, and one was a backpack-style device.
Plan 1 was a ring-shaped pair of glasses, with the consciousness reading device positioned behind the player's head. The front part of the glasses was fully transparent, with a built-in simple operating system that could connect to a phone via Bluetooth. Users could use it to browse the web, send messages, chat, and so on. Essentially, it was an external accessory that indirectly enabled brainwave-controlled phone functionality.
Plan 2 was a helmet that basically covered half of the player's head, similar to the VR helmets Chen Mo had seen in his previous life. This device could provide players with a fully virtual field of view, like a gaming pod, allowing them to play simple VR games. However, its performance was far inferior to a VR gaming pod. After all, only the consciousness reading device had been miniaturized; the other configurations hadn't been shrunk. So, this thing's performance was barely a bit better than a high-end phone. The idea of "VR anytime, anywhere" was just a gimmick.
Plan 3 seemed a bit clunkier. The player still wore a VR helmet, but it was connected to other devices via cables. The player could carry a main unit slightly larger than a laptop on their back, which could simulate relatively low-spec VR games, with graphics and quality at the level of mid-to-high-end PC games. But the problem was that carrying this thing around would definitely be heavy.
Just like in Chen Mo's previous life, most gaming laptops were just desktop computers that were slightly easier to move. Players generally didn't take these gaming laptops everywhere because they were really heavy.
Plan 1 clearly aimed to develop an accessory for phones, while Plans 2 and 3 tentatively took a small step toward VR gaming devices.
Lehui's main business was phones, but in recent years, its operations had gradually expanded into smart homes and personal computers, with plans to venture into VR gaming pods.
After all, in the parallel world, VR gaming pods were the pinnacle of high-end digital devices, and no one was indifferent to the profits there.
However, specialization was key. Lehui had spent many years barely establishing a foothold in the phone market. Their PC business wasn't going smoothly, and as for VR gaming pods, they had absolutely no clue.
The designers of Plans 2 and 3 were clearly hoping to use this opportunity to test the waters in the VR field.
But Chen Mo took a quick look and felt that none of these three plans were very reliable. It wasn't that the designers lacked skill, but rather that their positioning of the new product wasn't clear enough.
Zhou Jiangping wasn't upset. He said cheerfully, "Well, CEO Chen, why don't you tell us what direction this device should take? It'll be a good lesson for my designers."
Chen Mo said, "Obviously, if this device is only used as a phone accessory, the scope is too small. But if it's made for VR, the performance simply can't meet the requirements. So, the most suitable approach is to go for MR, Mixed Reality."
Zhou Jiangping was taken aback. "Mixed Reality? That concept... has been outdated for a long time, hasn't it?"
Chen Mo smiled. "It has indeed been outdated for a long time, but it's going to become popular again very soon."
...
Initially, virtual reality technology had three branches: VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), and MR (Mixed Reality).
The concepts of AR and MR actually share common ground, so these two terms are often confused. Simply put, they both insert information into the player's real-world field of view, overlaying virtual objects and scenes onto real scenes, thereby enhancing reality and giving players an effect that blurs the line between the real and the virtual.
But in the parallel world, VR had developed much better than MR.
In the early days, some developers were still researching MR devices, but later, they all rushed headlong into VR, and the concept of MR was gradually forgotten.
Because VR had consciousness reading technology, gaming pods, and support from a large number of game companies producing blockbuster titles, it could provide players with a gaming experience close to "soul transmigration." MR, on the other hand, could neither offer players an exciting gaming experience nor even read consciousness information, so it slowly faded from people's view.
After all, the prerequisite for AR and MR was portability. To project virtual objects into real scenes, the player had to leave their home and go to more real-world locations.
So, upon hearing about the development of a miniature consciousness reading device, Chen Mo's first reaction was that MR's opportunity had arrived.
Chen Mo said to Zhou Jiangping, "I'll send you a design draft. Take a look."
Zhou Jiangping opened the design draft Chen Mo had sent on his computer.
His first reaction was that it was somewhat similar to Plan 1. But after carefully examining the design, Zhou Jiangping realized that this was a completely different thing from the "Bluetooth glasses" in Plan 1.
In terms of appearance, the front of this device was a fully enclosed pair of glasses, seamless, basically covering the player's entire field of view. On the front, there was a miniature high-definition camera for capturing the player's forward view.
The back of the device was also a ring-shaped structure, covering the back of the player's head and both sides of the ears. Behind the left ear was the consciousness collection device, which could read the player's consciousness signals. Behind the right ear was the operation module, where the player could click buttons or use specific gestures to perform operations that were inconvenient to execute via consciousness signals.
The device had headphones with a surround-sound effect. The headphones had two states: on and off. When on, the player could not only hear sounds from the headphones but also choose to block out ambient noise, providing good sound insulation.
From an appearance design perspective, this thing was quite cool and futuristic, very much like the glasses worn by spaceship pilots in many sci-fi movies. Moreover, it wasn't as bulky as a helmet, at least it wouldn't make people's necks ache when worn out.