Chapter 88 The Starry Cloud Ecosystem Begins: The Prototype of the Internet of Everything

Pushing open the glass door of Software Lab No. 1, a pungent aroma of braised beef noodles hit the nose.

Xia Weiliang sat cross-legged, curled up in an ergonomic chair, her feet dangling in mid-air, swaying back and forth.

She held a paper bowl in her hands, using a fork to shovel noodles into her mouth.

"Ahem." Lu Jingming curled his fingers and knocked on the glass door twice.

Xia Weiliang turned her head, her cheeks puffed out, and mumbled something unintelligible.

"What is it now? Isn't the hardware battle over? Would it kill you to let me rest for two days?"

Lu Jingming walked over and tossed the two black boxes he was carrying onto the stainless steel table. Two soft "clacks" echoed.

"Rest my foot, get up and work. Did you finish linking the backend interface I asked you to run last time?"

Xia Weiliang slurped up the last of the noodle soup. She casually wiped her mouth with the cuff of her lab coat, leaving a light red oil stain.

"It's been done for a while. The underlying protocols are all packed and tossed into the server pool."

She put down the paper bowl and let out a burp that smelled of pickled vegetables. "What toys did you bring?"

Lu Jingming opened the first black box. A massive black screen, nearly ten inches in size, lay quietly in the anti-static foam pad. It looked very similar to the xinghai pro, but it was a whole size larger. The frame was made of cold, hard aluminum alloy, shimmering under the light.

He opened the second box. A black matte rubber strap with a rectangular piece of black glass embedded in the center. It looked like a cheap digital watch.

Chu Xuan, who had followed him in, poked his head in with his center-parted hair, his face full of confusion. "Boss Lu, this oversized phone… can it even fit in a pocket?"

He gestured with his hands to indicate the length and width. "How big would a pair of pants need to be to fit this?"

"Who told you to put it in your pocket?" Lu Jingming chuckled. He stood the large screen upright on the table and pressed the power button on the side.

The familiar dark blue starry sky wallpaper of Xinghai OS lit up instantly. The app icons on the desktop were sparsely arranged, looking empty.

General Manager Lei happened to come in with a supply order to get it stamped. He squeezed through the door, adjusted his black-rimmed glasses, and leaned in, staring curiously at the large screen.

"Boss Lu, this thing doesn't even have an earpiece. Isn't it a hassle to make calls?"

"It's called a tablet," Lu Jingming said, picking up a xinghai pro phone from the table. "There's no SIM card inserted; it relies entirely on Wi-Fi for connectivity. It wasn't born to make phone calls."

He turned his head and looked at Xia Weiliang, who was still licking her lips. "Is the account logged in?"

"Obviously. It's the same Xinghai Cloud account; it was bound as soon as it turned on." Xia Weiliang snapped her fingers.

Lu Jingming held up the xinghai pro. He aimed the camera at Chu Xuan and pressed the shutter with a "click." The image froze, and Chu Xuan's greasy, dazed face was captured in the photo album.

Lu Jingming tossed the phone onto the table and gestured with his chin toward the large tablet. "Brother Lei, tap on its gallery and take a look."

General Manager Lei, half-doubting, reached out with his rough finger. He tapped lightly on the "Gallery" icon on the tablet screen. The image loaded.

Chu Xuan's newly taken headshot was lying right there in the first slot of the tablet's photo wall. Every detail was crystal clear.

"Holy crap!" Chu Xuan shivered in shock, jumped back half a step, and tripped over an old network cable.

He looked at the phone on the table, then at the standing tablet. His brain just couldn't wrap itself around it.

"Neither of these machines is plugged into a data cable, so did the photo grow wings and fly over?"

General Manager Lei's eyes widened, and his jaw almost hit his feet. "Transferred via Bluetooth? No, that's not right, Bluetooth isn't that fast!"

He grabbed the tablet and turned it over and over, searching for a port, trying to find the hidden cable.

"This is called cloud synchronization," Lu Jingming said, leaning against the edge of the table with one hand in his jeans pocket.

"As long as you log in to the same Xinghai account, the photos you take on your phone, the text you type in your memos, and even software you've downloaded halfway…"

He raised his hand and pointed at the ceiling. "It all gets packed up and tossed into that invisible cloud in the sky."

"When you turn on the tablet and connect to the internet, all the data is pushed right back into it, exactly as it was."

General Manager Lei gasped, a sharp hiss of air escaping through his teeth. "This… this is too bizarre!"

He stuttered, his legs feeling a bit weak. "If, if I'm watching a movie on the tablet at home and then switch to my phone when I go out, can I continue from where I left off?"

"Not only can you continue watching," Lu Jingming grabbed the black rubber wristband from the table and tossed it into Chu Xuan's arms. "Put it on and run a few laps in the hallway. Run fast."

Chu Xuan scrambled to fasten the wristband around his wrist and bolted out of the lab door.

The sound of leather shoes slapping against the terrazzo floor echoed in the hallway, as he ran with great effort.

Lu Jingming opened the "Xinghai Health" app on his phone. In the center of the screen, a red heart icon began to pulse. Next to it, a line of numbers appeared: 85, 92, 110.

The numbers changed every second, surging upward in sync with the sound of Chu Xuan's rapid footsteps in the hallway.

"You can even transmit heart rate data through the air?!" General Manager Lei's voice cracked, and his eyes behind his thick lenses were bloodshot.

He suddenly realized. These weren't just a few isolated metal shells. This was an airtight spiderweb!

"This is called an ecosystem closed loop," Lu Jingming said, turning off the screen, a playful, cold smile curling the corners of his mouth.

"No matter how great the hardware is, if the public gets tired of it, they can switch to another brand at any time."

He reached out and tapped the aluminum alloy casing of the tablet, his voice deepening. "But as long as the user's photos, data, and heart rate information are all tied to our Xinghai Cloud…"

"…even if they want to switch to another device, they won't be able to bear cutting off this piece of flesh."

Shen Qingqiu walked in with a stack of customs declaration forms. She happened to hear these words, and her high-heeled steps paused at the door. The collar of her white shirt rose and fell slightly with her breath.

"So, you cut off the communication baseband module to avoid the overseas patent wall."

She bit her red lip, her gaze toward Lu Jingming filled with a hint of wariness. "Using Wi-Fi devices to directly break into the foreigners' social circles. This move is a total undercut; it's vicious beyond measure."

Three days later. Xinghai Technology's official website quietly listed two new products. The xinghai pad, priced at 3,999 yuan. The Xinghai Smart Band, priced at 299 yuan.

On Twitter, several bloggers who reposted domestic videos uploaded demo clips of the tablet and phone cloud synchronization. They added poorly translated English subtitles.

Foreign netizens initially cursed in the comments section, calling it a fake scam synthesized by the Chinese using computer special effects.

But when the first batch of scalpers, who had pulled strings to get the actual products, slammed unboxing and seamless synchronization videos onto YouTube, those arrogant taunts were instantly silenced.

In an underground grey market in New York, the air was thick with the smell of cheap perfume and sweat.

"Fuck! This tablet is so smooth for browsing! The text is twice as big as on a phone!" A blond fat man snatched the xinghai pad from someone's hand and clutched it tightly to his chest.

"One thousand dollars! I want this one!" The black reseller next to him rolled his eyes and snatched it back.

"Go buy a box for one thousand dollars! It's already hyped up to two thousand dollars on the black market!"

The black man pointed at the dark blue glass on the back of the tablet, spraying spit as he talked. "You have to pair the tablet with a Xinghai Mobile! Otherwise, you can't use cloud synchronization for shit!"

"Five thousand dollars for the whole set, no bargaining. If you don't want it, get lost!"

The foreigners went crazy. Even without the Google service framework, Xinghai's built-in video software and map navigation were so smooth that it made them want to smash the crappy devices in their hands.

Ship after ship of grey market goods sailed across the ocean from the port of Donghai City.

On the other side of the ocean, at the Google headquarters in Silicon Valley, the spacious CEO's office was dark. The blinds were pulled shut tight, not letting in a single ray of California sunshine. The room was filled with the heavy, sour smell of coffee.

Andy Rubin slumped in the executive chair. This recognized father of the Android system in the industry now had hair as messy as a clump of weeds. Stubble covered his chin, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

On the large mahogany desk sat a xinghai pro phone, a xinghai pad, and a black rubber wristband. All three screens were lit up simultaneously. The wallpapers were all identical dark blue starry skies.

With trembling hands, he created a new memo on the phone screen and typed in a string of gibberish. Less than two seconds later, the tablet screen next to it flickered. The string of gibberish appeared obediently in the corresponding app, not even a punctuation mark off.

Andy's fingers froze in mid-air. His fingertips trembled uncontrollably. He panted heavily. He suddenly grabbed the tablet and smashed it hard onto the table. The glass back panel struck the edge of the solid wood table, emitting a harsh, dull thud. It didn't break, not even a scratch.

The solid wood door was pushed open. The Vice President of Google walked in with a stack of data reports. His leather shoes made no sound on the carpet.

"Andy…" the Vice President swallowed dryly, his voice drifting, his eyes darting away. "We received word from HTC and Motorola. They refuse to pre-install our Android open-source system on their next-generation flagship phones."

He looked down at the report in his hands, not daring to meet his boss's eyes. "They said that Xinghai's ecosystem has already taken shape. Now, the public only recognizes the Xinghai suite."

Andy Rubin rested his elbows on his knees. He buried his fingers deep into his messy hair and pulled at his scalp with force. A wheezing, miserable laugh squeezed out of his throat.

"There's no chance left. We've lost so badly we don't even have our underwear left."

Andy lifted his head, his face ashen like a corpse. He stared fixedly at the three data devices on the table glowing with blue light.

"Those Chinese people have built an iron tortoise shell that you can't even stick a needle into." His lips were pale, and his teeth chattered with a faint clicking sound.

"What's the point of releasing a system now." Andy let go, letting his body slump limply into the chair. He looked up at the pitch-black ceiling.

"Tell the people below to shut down the servers. Our Android, before it was even born, is already a pile of stinking electronic trash."