Chapter 27: A Smart Brain Can Save Money
After the laughter died down, a reporter asked, "Mr. William Devinshire, you are now the richest young man in England. What are your plans after acquiring such a large fortune?"
William thought for a while and said, "First, I plan to buy a large house for my mother, Lina. She worked too hard for too long. I hope her life will be easier in the future, that she can do what she likes without ever worrying about money again."
After William finished speaking, applause broke out in the conference hall. Everyone was moved by his filial piety.
"Secondly, I'll use part of this money to pursue ideas I couldn't afford to before. I have a lot of them. For example, last year I came up with a new audio encoding format, an alternative to MP3. I call it WMA, for Windows Media Audio. I also have some designs for drones."
Before he could finish, Diana Rigg interrupted him. "Sorry, William, but I have to stop you there. This WMA format you mentioned—if I understood correctly, this is a completely new invention? Can you please explain it in more detail?"
William gave Diana Rigg a look of mock dissatisfaction. In response, Diana simply hugged her arms, blinked her eyes, and gave him a cute pout.
William rolled his eyes playfully, then nodded. "Since someone wants to know, I'll talk about it briefly. In my opinion, current MP3 players are too big and ugly, and the sound quality is terrible. It's also unfair that customers who have already bought CDs from record companies can't easily convert their music. If they want to download genuine music online, they have to pay all over again."
The people in the audience nodded in agreement.
"Also, while MP3s allow for online music downloads, the rampant piracy is killing the record industry. That model isn't sustainable. Consumers want products that are simple, cheap, convenient, and high-quality. So, I invented the WMA format. It creates files that are less than half the size of MP3s, with sound quality identical to a CD. It also allows you to copy your own purchased CDs, and a player using it can store more than three times the number of songs as current MP3 products."
Diana Rigg stood up again without raising her hand, her eyes wide. "William," she said, her voice full of affection, "are you saying that you thought current MP3 players were too ugly, had too little capacity, and sounded bad—that they didn't meet your personal standards—so you just invented a new one yourself?"
"Pretty much, yes," William said, looking a little embarrassed. "I'm a science and engineering guy. I have a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder when it comes to things I'm interested in. I always want to make them perfect, something I can be satisfied with." Of course, he was just plagiarizing technology from his past life, but he still had to build the actual product himself.
Seeing William's shy expression, Diana Rigg found herself looking forward to their date that evening even more. She thought William was blushing because he was interested in her, and she found it incredibly cute.
The reporters at the scene and the audience watching on TV were once again shocked by William. *We know you're a genius, but this is a whole other level. Are you even from the same planet as us? Are you from Mars?*
"William, when will this product be on the market?" a reporter asked loudly. "What you've described makes me want one right now. I'm already sick of my current MP3!"
"If the patent review goes quickly, I think it could be available in about six months," William replied. He pointed a finger to his head. "Everything about the product is right up here. I even made a simple prototype at home over the last few days."
He took a cigarette-box-sized MP3 player from his pocket and showed it to everyone. "The official product will be smaller and half as thin as this one. The shell is just plastic I molded myself, and the electronics are from a second-hand shop. Do you want to try it?"
"Of course!" everyone nodded eagerly.
William turned on the MP3 player, held the headphones up to the microphone, and the iconic opening notes of "My Heart Will Go On" filled the hall.
Many people in the audience who owned MP3 players could immediately tell that the sound quality was far superior to anything currently on the market. After the song finished, William turned off the device.
"In my mind, the new MP3 player should be simple, practical, and beautiful. When people see it for the first time, they won't be able to take their eyes off it. It will represent fashion and youthful vitality. It also needs to be able to store a thousand songs. The measure of its success will be that once people buy it, they will never want to put it down."
The hall once again erupted in thunderous applause. The reporters felt it was a brilliant move to have come today.
William Devinshire was a news-making machine. He was the pride of England, and he was on his way to becoming the pride of the world. They were already itching to buy the MP3 player William had described.
After waiting a few moments for the applause to die down, William looked apologetically at Roger Moore, the Vice President of Best Buy. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said to the reporters, "let's get back to today's main topic. I fear our president, Mr. Roger Moore, is catching a cold. We've left him out of the conversation for too long."
"Hahaha..." The room filled with another round of laughter.
Roger Moore calmly spoke into the microphone. "No, no, no, William. I don't care about the game right now; like everyone else, I just want to know when I can buy that MP3 and how much it will cost. And what's its name? You have to give it a name."
"Haha, yes! What Roger Moore wants to know is what we all want to know!" many reporters shouted in support.
Roger Moore wasn't angry at all. He knew that the more famous William became, the more famous his game would be, which was only good for Best Buy.
William nodded apologetically to Roger Moore and then addressed the reporters. "Well, since Mr. Moore doesn't mind me hijacking the press conference, I'll say a little more. I've named this MP3 player 'myListen'. If everything goes well, it should be available within six months, maybe even three. It all depends on when the English authorities can issue me an industry access permit. The electronic components required for the first generation of the myListen series are all readily available on the market. It's already a mature product. If I place an order today, three months will be enough for a manufacturer to produce it."
"As for the price, I'm not sure yet, but I promise it won't be more expensive than existing MP3s. After all," he said with a wry smile, "the R&D cost of this product was very low. So low, in fact, that I now regret developing it alone. It will be difficult for me to claim the 1.5 times R&D tax refund stipulated by the English government." After saying that, he made a helpless face at the camera.
"Hahaha..." The audience laughed again.
"This is the benefit of having a smart brain," William added with a shrug. "It saves me a lot on R&D costs."
Seeing William's shrug, everyone applauded him again. One reporter shouted, "Good job, William! We like your smart brain! If you can cut the price in half, we'll marry Diana Rigg to you immediately!"
"Hahahaha!"
Diana Rigg looked at William shyly, her eyes seeming to say, *William, if you propose right now, I'll say yes.*
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