January 9th, Monday.
Pei Qian woke up early and headed to the self-study room.
With only two final exams left in the exam week, one was open-book and one was closed-book.
While strictly speaking, open-book exams weren’t much easier and achieving high scores was equally difficult, as long as one was familiar enough with notes and textbooks, they could get a decent score, so it didn’t require too much effort.
For Pei Qian, the closed-book exam was relatively much harder, since it relied entirely on rote memorization – if you couldn’t memorize it, you couldn’t memorize it, with no room for faking it.
So Pei Qian still put most of his energy into the closed-book subject, striving to make some breakthroughs through his efforts, no longer just passing with barely passing grades.
At least aim for a 65 or 70, right?
If he scored 60 points, Pei Qian would find it hard to tell whether it was due to his effort or the examiner’s effort; if it was 65 or 70 points, then it would definitely all be his effort!
The difference between these was quite significant.
Arriving at the self-study room, Pei Qian spread out his notes, completely silenced his phone, and placed it where his hands couldn’t reach, then began reviewing.
Last weekend, almost all the news in the e-sports circle had been dominated by the ioi global finals and GPL spring season, and they even managed to break into mainstream circles, with even many people who originally didn’t follow e-sports learning about this news through various channels.
More precisely, 99% of the news from the ioi finals was related to the FV club.
As the last remaining domestic team, FV cleanly defeated veteran European and American powerhouse CEM 3:0 in an upset victory, making all domestic viewers feel proud, and would undoubtedly receive all the attention and applause.
Although Long Yu Group could influence domestic media to some extent, in the current situation, Long Yu Group was completely powerless.
FV club was now absolutely in the spotlight – did they think media wouldn’t report on it if they wanted to prevent it?
So Zhao Ximing had given up. Since he couldn’t change it, he might as well accept it calmly.
FV club’s popularity could also bring some buzz to ioi, which wasn’t a loss for Zhao Ximing.
But for Pei Qian, this situation was a bit hard to handle.
Because whether it was GPL’s popularity or FV team’s popularity, both were directly related to his interests.
GPL’s popularity meant that various sponsorship and advertising rates would rise with the tide – the more popular the league, the more money earned; and if FV team achieved good results, whether it could revitalize ioi’s Chinese server was uncertain, but it would definitely make FV team’s value skyrocket.
When various sponsors and investors come pouring in, that scene would be too beautiful – he couldn’t bear to imagine it.
Of course, after entering the quarterfinals, each win would bring massive prize money. According to the FV team’s rules, the prize money was distributed after tax deduction: 20% to the club, 20% to the coaching staff, and 60% to the players.
So for Pei Qian, the prize money portion was manageable, since the bulk went to players and coaching staff.
Of course, if they won the championship, the prize money would indeed be substantial. Based on 50% of 3 million dollars, after tax deduction, only around 300,000 dollars would remain for the club.
Even adding the 25% share from the exclusive skin sales revenue from Zhi Tou Company, it wouldn’t be much.
Converting to RMB, it would only be a few million, which, for Pei Qian, who had experienced many worse scenarios, was truly just a drop in the bucket.
Besides, they might not even win the championship.
FV had just secured their quarterfinal spot. Although the quarterfinals match went smoothly, this was the World Championship with hidden talents everywhere, and the semifinals and finals opponents would be exponentially stronger.
Thinking about championships right after securing quarterfinals – isn’t that thinking too much?
Moreover, the prize money the club received would be used for its designated purpose. Since it was money earned by the club, it should certainly be kept for daily operations, and Wu Yue could figure out how to spend it.
So, after careful reflection, Pei Qian felt he could almost shift his focus away from Los Angeles.
Originally hoping the FV club would go for a quick exit in Los Angeles and spend more money on him, unexpectedly, FV performed so well, leaving Pei Qian somewhat disappointed.
Since he couldn’t count on it anymore, he might as well shift his attention to other industries.
With this short settlement cycle ending soon, various products should be released in the next week or two, so he still needed to pay close attention.
Of course, whatever major issues arose would have to wait until after exams were finished.
Pei Qian moved his phone even further away and began serious reviewing.
…
NOON.
Pei Qian contentedly stretched his arms – today’s morning study tasks were completed.
“Indeed, phones are harmful. The distance between my phone and me is directly proportional to my studying efficiency: the closer it is, the lower my efficiency.”
“Time to get some good food!”
Pei Qian, who had persisted through the morning without checking his phone, felt a bit proud. After packing up his notes, he left the self-study room, heading to the nearby Slackin’ Internet Café for lunch.
Picking up his phone, he checked for any new messages.
No one from the company had contacted him, but the phone itself pushed a system update notification.
“Stable version system update notification? The stable version is finally complete.”
Pei Qian checked his phone battery and saw it was still sufficient, so he directly chose to update.
Pei Qian himself was using the OTTO E1 phone, which was released last March and had been used for exactly 10 months now.
It was still smooth and non-laggy, since it used flagship chips from that time.
When first obtained, the 247-gram half-kilogram device was indeed heavy, but after using it for a while, he had gotten somewhat used to it.
Moreover, the large battery meant completely eliminating battery anxiety – playing with the phone all day, it would still have power upon returning home.
Of course, this might also be a significant reason for Pei Qian’s low studying efficiency.
During these 10 months, OTTO phones had frequently undergone small system updates, continuously optimizing features, but this major version update had been brewing for months before its big reveal.
Actually, development had been completed long ago, but phone system updates must be approached cautiously. Once the official version is pushed, most phone users would choose to update, and if anything went wrong during updating causing data loss, it would be a major disaster.
So, only today did OTTO phone’s stable version finally push the official update.
By the time Pei Qian reached Slackin’ Internet Café, ordered food, and started eating, the system had finally finished updating.
“So many updates, let’s see what changed.”
Pei Qian checked his phone’s new system while eating.
The most direct feeling was that it seemed much smoother?
Whether swiping the home screen, dragging icons, or other operations, everything became silky smooth, very close to pineapple phones’ feel.
Plus, perhaps because OTTO E1 originally came with high refresh rate and flagship chips, this smooth feeling was even more responsive than pineapple phones!
Additionally, various system features previously updated separately could now be customized according to personal preferences.
For example, you could freely drag calendar, clock, alarm to the home screen or remove them, customize negative screen content, and with just a bit of time, transform the phone interface into the most comfortable and convenient layout.
This was the result of OTTO Technology’s entire team spending months perfecting their craft.
Chang You had originally intended to add some system features to the phone but was vetoed by Pei Qian.
Pei Qian had Chang You focus entirely on fine-tuning details, including linear animations, learning from pineapple phones. After all, such changes only slightly improved user experience without affecting actual functionality – thankless improvements.
Everything has pros and cons. After months of patient adjustment, OTTO phone’s new system’s linear animation finally reached perfection and was ready for release!
Every operation on the phone gave that incredibly smooth feeling.
This couldn’t be helped – OTTO Technology’s developers had to do something, and if not linear animations, they’d work on other features.
Pei Qian continuously opened and closed phone apps, played around, then satisfied, continued checking other changes.
The camera system had massive updates, basically completely redone compared to the previous camera system, adding numerous new features.
For a phone released ten months ago, OTTO’s camera module was somewhat outdated, but this update’s camera system added extensive optimization algorithms, including automatic image recognition, auto-coloring, auto-beautification, etc.
Simply put, it automatically recognizes what’s being photographed – food, scenery, or people – then automatically switches to corresponding algorithms to make photos look better.
Of course, users could also quickly choose to turn off all algorithms while taking photos for the most authentic pictures.
However, for most people, they still preferred system-processed photos since they looked better.
Many beautification cameras were criticized fundamentally because they over-processed – excessive colors, over-saturation, or beautification causing distorted proportions, making photos look fake.
OTTO’s updated camera system had been extensively tested in the imaging lab with many professional photographers researching for a long time, trying to find a balance between preserving original appearance and post-processing enhancement.
Additionally, AEEIS mobile assistant was updated.
In fact, currently almost all domestic phones used Xun Ke Technology’s voice technology, with Shen Hua and other domestic phone brands already implementing voice assistants.
AEEIS just packaged differently from these voice assistants, without significant practical improvements, so this couldn’t be considered particularly groundbreaking news.
There were also various other minor updates, but if even Pei Qian couldn’t notice them, users would likely notice even less.
Summarizing the currently noticed system updates, the biggest changes were essentially three: linear animation as smooth as pineapple phones, better-tuned camera system, and AEEIS voice assistant.
Pei Qian felt these all seemed acceptable.
While all provided some improvement to daily phone usage experience, they all belonged to the “weakly perceptible” type – details improved considerably but nothing particularly sensational.
Currently OTTO E1 phone had entered its final life stage. Following the one-phone-per-year pace, after this cycle settlement, a new phone would be released, letting E1 officially retire.
Updating so many system features at the end of this model’s life meant new users wouldn’t purchase phones for these features alone. Since nobody’s buying phones, there’s no profit, everything’s peaceful, no President Pei gets hurt.
However, just as Pei Qian relaxed his guard, he suddenly noticed a new built-in system app: Mall!
This mall mainly integrated all Tenda’s daily retail products, allowing OTTO phone users to directly order from here, enjoying some exclusive discounts.
After all, OTTO phone appeared to be a phone but was actually Tenda’s full industry VIP status.
Pei Qian opened the mall, then saw a large message on the splash screen.
“Fully Automatic Smart Debating Machine AEEIS, officially on sale!”