November 15th, Tuesday…
Handong University’s Ancient Chinese Studies Dormitory.
A few students were typing on their keyboards onto their respective laptops. From time to time, they would stop and search for various information online.
Those who did not know would think that they were writing a thesis.
However, in fact, they were the first batch of creators of the ‘Useful App’. At that moment, they were completing the task assigned by their mentor.
These master program’s students were responsible for a portion of the content each, mainly poems, lyrics, ancient texts, and so on. After the basic content was uploaded to the ‘Useful App’ note, they would be responsible for summarizing, sorting out existing research results and knowledge, and perfecting the terms.
The ‘Useful App’ had a special platform template. The creators only had to fill it in according to the template. The content would be reviewed by higher-level creators. Normally, it would be done by PhD students or young lecturers. The template would be displayed after the review.
These master’s students would normally log onto the wiki website or the Knowledge Network. However, compared to these two websites, the ‘Useful App’ was more scientific in terms of structural planning.
The ‘Useful App’ structure was similar to the Encyclopedic website, but apart from the content, there was also a huge difference in the details of the usage.
Simply put, ‘Useful App’ was trying hard to do subtraction and stratification.
Ordinary wiki websites would display most of the information of the same word on the same page. On the one hand, it would appear too messy. On the other hand, the content would not be on the same level and would not be able to adapt to the need for personalization.
For example, some people only wanted the most basic information, while others needed detailed analysis of a certain word or sentence. These two extreme requirements were difficult for the wiki website to take care of.
“Useful App” was actually a multi-layered structure. The first layer was the core and most essential analysis of a certain word; the second layer was some classification analysis of the word; the third layer was the analysis and study of a particular word; the fourth layer was the origin of the content, citing the thesis, and so on; and the fifth layer was the various questions derived from the word.
The levels would be displayed in various ways such as flipping pages or flicking windows, taking care of users’ usage habits.
For users, they could accurately and quickly find the content that they needed the most without having to read any unnecessary information.
At the moment, the ‘Useful App’ was being used for ancient poems and literature. The basic functions had already been developed. Apart from repairing all sorts of bugs, the main task now was to rely on the creators to continuously update the content.
This was a relatively boring job, but the students did not find it tiring.
On one hand, this was their profession. It was akin to consolidating their own professional knowledge when sorting out these contents. On the other hand, this was also a job that could very well subsidize the daily expenses of these poor students.
A masters program student had just finished his work for the day. He leaned back in his chair and stretched.
“Old Li, have you completed your task today?”
“Almost.”
“What do you mean by almost? Don’t try to fool us. Previously, you used the wrong thesis, and we were warned by our supervisor. Professor Kong Zhemin is in charge of this. Don’t even think about graduating if you dare to cause any trouble!”
“Don’t worry, I was negligent last time. I checked the contents several times now. I won’t make that kind of low-level mistake again.”
“However, I’m puzzled. Why did Tengda pay us to make something like that? They would probably won’t be able to earn much money even though it’s supposed to be charged, right?”
“Who knows? Maybe he’s planning to sell it to some education groups? At the very least, it would be quite useful for primary and secondary students to use this ‘Useful App’ to read poetry.”
“However, the problem is that the information can be checked with Qiandu search engine, and it’s free. There are also explanations for these poems in the textbooks and supplementary books.”
“You can’t say that. The contents of Qiandu’s investigation are too messy. It’s difficult to distinguish them. As for the contents of the textbooks and guidance books, they’re obviously not as comprehensive as ours. I think that using the application would probably burn money in the beginning. Not many people would pay for it. However, as more and more content is created, more people would pay for it.”
“At our current speed, I highly doubt that we will be able to make it profitable within ten years…”
All of these students had their own views on the ‘Useful App’. Many of them did not think that it would succeed at all. They only used their spare time to create and enrich the contents because of Tengda’s subsidies.
Many people were even prepared that Tengda would give up on this project at any time. They had the mentality that they would earn some money for as long as they could.
One student was confused. “Sigh, I’ve always had a question. ‘Synonyms’, ‘Antonyms’, ‘Rhyming Words’ and other functions don’t seem to be displayed on ‘Useful App’. Why are they doing this?”
The so-called ‘Synonyms’, ‘Antonyms’ and ‘Rhyming Words’ were actually establishing a connection between words with similar meanings, opposite meanings, and similar rhythm
Every time a poem was recorded, one could freely add its synonymous words, antonyms words, rhyming words, and the like to establish a connection between different poems or poems.
These contents were also included in the workload, and the weightage was not low. After sorting out a poem, one could search it online, verify it, and then fill in the relevant poems in the backend platform.
However, the strange thing was that this connection would not be displayed in the ‘useful application’. That made everyone slightly confused.
“I don’t understand. They obviously created this function but didn’t show it. Isn’t that a waste?”
“Who knows? Maybe the reception for this function is still under development? Is it done at the backend platform and displayed directly after it’s done?”
“Maybe.”
The students did not pay much attention to it and continued working on the backend platform.
…
At Otto Technologies…
Chang You invited Yu Pingan to the guest room when he arrived.
“Wait a moment.”
Chang You left for a moment, he returned with an OTTO cell phone.
“You’re here today to do some work on the application database. Since you’re here, feel out the functions of the first version of AEEIS’ smart assistant.”
“Our researchers have been working on it for a while now. We need a complete outsider to give us some opinions from a more objective point of view.”
Chang You handed his cell phone to Yu Pingan as he spoke.
Yu Pingan was supposed to work with Chang You today because the data on the application would be directly linked to the AEEIS smart database. There were many details in the design that required the two in charge to make decisions.
In the end, Chang You caught him as a lab rat to experience AEEIS’ initial version.
Yu Pingan might not be very interested in these but he still reached out to take the cell phone and seriously tried it out.
There was an unwritten rule within Tengda Corporation that every department had to unconditionally and unreservedly cooperate with the other departments to meet their needs. All department heads had to abide by this rule habitually.
When did such unspoken rules become established?
Most people did not know.
However, the source of this unspoken rule could probably be traced back to Boss Pei. On one hand, Boss Pei attached great importance to the cooperation between the various departments. On the other hand, there was no pressure from the heads of the various departments to compete with each other. Everyone worked for Boss Pei, and their salaries were not much different. The bonuses did not depend on profits but on reputation. Thus, there would not be sectarian bias between the various departments like some large companies.
Yu Pingan noticed that there were some changes to this OTTO E1 when compared to the cell phone that was being sold on the market. The most direct observation was the operating system of the cell phone.
At first, the operating system of Otto Technologies was more like that of the original Andriod. The interface was simple and clean, but it also gave people a feeling that it was too simple.
However, this version of the operating system had much more content. The UI animation of various systems became smoother, more natural, and had many more details. There were also many more options in the system settings that could better dig into some new functions of the Android system. The camera system’s icons had been changed, and new functions would be discovered after clicking into them, such as the optimized algorithm for taking pictures, new filters, and so on.
Other than that, the system also incorporated the functions of AEEIS’ smart assistant. He could either press the power button or directly speak to AEEIS to get the Intelligent Voice Assistant to appear.
Yu Pingan did not know much about AEEIS’ Intelligent Voice Assistant.
He only knew that this Intelligent Voice Assistant had also used the latest artificial intelligence research results of Xinkuo Technologies. It was similar to the smart assistants and smart speakers produced by other manufacturers. The only difference was in the details of the adjustments.
In addition, Chang You had said that this was a ‘erudite and easygoing smart system’. It would sometimes speak with venom and also had poetry function.
However, Yu Pingan did not take it too seriously. Since all the low-level technologies were used for communication technology, this voice assistant should not be that different from other voice assistants. What’s more, it was only the first version.
Yu Pingan said into his cell phone, “AEEIS.”
After a crisp beeping sound, a dark gray cover appeared on the cell phone screen, covering the content of the original image. A colorful tilde appeared on the screen.
The main part below the tilde was a display area for information. At the bottom was a smaller tilde.
The colorful tilde above the screen was AEEIS’ main body. It would only move according to the sound notes when AEEIS answered. When AEEIS did not answer, it would have other dynamics such as rolling in in wave motions or rotating regularly. This was used to express AEEIS’ current mood and state of mind.
On the other hand, the smaller tilde was used to collect voice messages from the outside world. It would vibrate as Yu Pingan spoke.
The entire page was very clean. There was no additional text information.
Yu Pingan had used other voice assistants before. Many words would be displayed on the page, including frequently asked questions. However, the AEEIS interface was cleaner and simpler. It was the same style as Otto OS.
Yu Pingan had a good first impression of AEEIS.
