Chapter 292 Zeus One
February 15th.
As evening neared in Eden, one of the largest indoor auditoriums in the country was filled to the brim. The entire venue was sold out and people had already arrived, filling every available seat despite the launch event still being a few hours away.
Outside the auditorium, but still inside the building, people were walking around and talking to each other. For anyone interested in the international tech industry, they would realize that most of the people there were famous names in the tech industry, showing the level of the event that was about to take place.
As for the influencers, no one that had received the invitation even thought of declining to attend. But it wasn't just an invitation they had received; everyone that had received one had also been given a business-class ticket on whichever day they would like to arrive in Eden. Room and board were included as well, up until the day after the launch event concluded. That in itself showed that GAIA Tech was taking the launch very seriously.
When the time hit 8PM exactly, everyone had already taken their seats and the lights slowly dimmed. The crowd fell silent, since everyone knew the event was about to start.
After ten seconds of darkness, the lights on the stage started coming up and people recognized the shape of a man walking to the center of the stage. As the light grew stronger, they finally saw who it was.
"Welcome to the first GAIA event," Aron said. Simultaneously, the fifty-foot high screens behind him came to life and showed him on each of them. Subtitles appeared on the screen as he spoke, live translating his speech. As for the livestream, the option was there to use real-time speech-to-text translation, or to real-time dubbing.
But his welcoming speech passed in one ear and out the other for many of the watchers and attendees, due to the name that appeared on the screens. He was Aron Michael, the creator of the famous BugZapper and GAIA OS, who had never been seen in any event or interview before this. For many, it was their first time seeing the handsome man and they felt their impressions of him shattering. They had thought he would look like a tech geek, but reality had slapped them in the face so hard it almost caused them physical pain.
"Let's see what we have to come." Only when they heard that did the audience come back into their right minds and focus on the event taking place. Some felt a burning in their cheeks as they blushed, realizing they had been mesmerized by his handsome appearance.
After finishing the introduction, Aron was immediately taken out of focus as the screens behind him started playing a history of the innovations that GAIA Tech had introduced over the two years since its inception. It reintroduced products from BugZapper all the way to their most recent product, Pangea. All of it was being shown through the incredibly clear screens.
When the video ended, attendees started clapping in excitement. They had been impressed by the steps the company had taken and the products they had released in the two years of their existence.
"Yes, that's certainly a history to feel proud of," Aron said in his calm voice, which caused the applause to die out. "Although our history is something we feel proud of, we still find it rather incomplete," he continued, and the screen behind him immediately started listing their products.
"But if you look at them, you'll realize that there's nothing but software. And with the hardware market as it stands, none of my software can work to their full capabilities. After all, it has to be designed while taking into account the different platforms it'll be installed on, making it take more space on each? devices than it usually would."
He paused for a moment to allow people to make some guesses in their minds, then continued, "So in order to solve that problem, I decided to release hardware that'll really give my OS the platform it requires in order to operate at full power." The moment Aron finished speaking, the stage was dimmed once again as the massive screens behind him played another video.
Like a usual product introduction, it didn't show the full product. It was just a hint, feeding the audience's curiosity and enhancing the impact of the eventual full reveal.
As the video ended, the focus came back to Aron and he immediately started talking. "I present to you Zeus One!" As he said that, the full picture of a smartphone was displayed, winning quite an impressive reaction from the people watching the event.
The phone looked nothing like any that had been released that year, or any year before. It was obviously different from the usual phones that were released every year, but the most attention-grabbing thing was that there was no selfie camera lens visible anywhere on the front of the phone at all. It completely bucked the trend that smartphone manufacturers had been following, where the integrated front camera was a major selling point of their hardware.
"A powerful machine made specifically for the GAIA OS to be able to work to the fullest of its abilities, thanks to the chip made specifically for its operation." As Aron spoke, the phone on the screens turned transparent, showing the components inside and "exploding" them out so that each one could be seen individually.
The display then zoomed in on the phone's CPU chip. "Meet Z1, our proprietary processor. It's at least five times faster than any chip that's ever been put in any smartphone." The screens displayed an infographic showing their benchmark test results compared to all of the top smartphones from other manufacturers. "The Z1 processor chip will allow the GAIA OS to operate to its fullest capabilities, and all hardware devices sold by us will include the highest premium version of GAIA OS for free."
The entire audience broke out into applause; people were thrilled that a free top-tier subscription to GAIA OS would be included with what looked like a powerhouse of a smartphone. Not bad for a new company's first flagship release.
