Chapter 6; Rob’s Prototype
VI Headset Still Has a Problem
Rob Howard and partner Marsh Perry originally started their
company Virtual-Scope in answer to a fast-growing public demand for virtual
reality systems. From the onset there was plenty of competition with developing
units even more advanced than what other companies were already marketing. Fortunately,
Rob’s excellent managing skills with sales and production combined with Marsh’s
inventive genius with researching and developing computer gadgetry to make
their business a highly profitable success from the very start.
So much so, that by now both men wanted to expand their
facility to twice its size. They had not so far, because it meant shutting down
a very good money-making operation for too long. Additionally, the rapidly evolving
market with producing increasingly advanced VI accessories had Virtual - Scope
hard pressed just to keep up. As a result Rob and Marsh along with all their
employees had worked many extra hours for as long as any of them could
remember.
In
the middle of saying something to partner Marsh, Rob heard his desk’s intercom
phone start buzzing. Nearing the end of another long day and pretty worn out as
usual, he pressed the answer button and growled, “Yeah Kathy, now what!?”
Seconds later he was grinning like he’d just seen his beloved Green Bay Packers
score the winning touchdown. “They’re ready? Great Kathy, so bring one up OK?
No, better make that two. My two cyber-monsters will fight over it if I bring
home just one of ‘em.”
Seated
before his desktop PC and taking this in, Rob’s partner Marsh Perry simply smiled
and nodded, “Very good!” Quite reserved compared to Rob, a smile from Marsh
could mean he was anything from mildly amused to wildly jubilant.
Clicking
off and turning to Marsh, Rob threw off the many months of frustration with a rebel
yell - “Yee-ah - hoo! Well good buddy, you heard the gist of it and she’s on
her way up! Kathy says your upgraded sensors are the slickest thing since
sliced bread!”
Peering
up owlishly back at Rob through his wide frame reading glasses, Marsh nodded
again, “So I gathered. Of course we’ll still have to do more…”
All
a-grin Rob cut him off. “More testing? Sure we do but not today! No, we’ll
close shop and get out of here early for once! In fact, this Sunday I can even
take Connie and the kids to Green Bay for the first Packer’s game I’ve been to
this year! You and Louise could come too you know!”
Marsh shook his head. “I can’t, Rob. I’ve got to come
in over the weekend and work on the response time. You see, I think we can
speed it up even more.” Ever the perfectionist, he was never entirely satisfied
with their product.
“Marsh, these new ones of yours react to the user
faster than any others on the market. I’m telling you, this newest one is a
world beater. Besides, your Louise told me the other day she’s ready move your
bed over here. We won’t turn these over to production anyway until Kathy’s
added her finishing touches. Meantime, both of my kids are geniuses with these
VI’s. While we’re waiting on Kathy, my two will test them out better than we
can!”
Before Marsh could answer, Kathy Chen rushed into the
office. Still in her lab coat she beamed proudly while handing the two new
units to Rob. “Here they are, bosses! By now in our trials the visual clarity,
response time, and sensory capabilities are fantastic! Along with the
additional apps our clients will love ‘em!”
She
being one of the best cybernetics-electronics technicians there was, Rob could
well believe it. Taking them, he returned a wide grin. “We’ve got to give you
another raise! You say you’ll still be awhile fine-tuning them?”
She nodded, “I accept the raise and yes, sorry to say,
I will be. But not for long, Rob. By a process of elimination we have only two
kinds to fool with. Our light-weight VI sunglasses won’t be ready until we do
more miniaturizing but these headbands are ready to go.” Kathy hurried on to
explain, “The eyeglasses have the apps coded within the lenses and these headband
visors do too. Naturally, you summon them up from both types by voice command,
so long as you…” She exaggeratedly mouthed the words. “…e-nun-ci-ate…clearly!”
Leaning toward her, Marsh frowned, “Katherine, that’s all
well and good, I suppose. But unfortunately, my neural sensors still cannot
pick up mental commands very well. Eventually I’ll have them greatly improved,
but for now the users must simply do the best they can.”
She answered, “Using mental commands with the eyeglasses
still needs work and also with beefing up the power source. But Marsh, a user
wearing this headband can do it…if they really, really concentrate!” Kathy
looked over at Rob. “You said your Bessie did, right? With our older helmet
model?”
He
nodded, “Yeah, sort of. But she said it was a lot easier using vocals, so she’s
mostly dropped trying to use the thought commands. Anyway, you say Bess will be
able to do that a lot better with these headbands?”
“Knowing
her she will. And she’ll find another advantage over the glasses.”
“Like
what?”
Kathy
laughed, “Well, you know how your daughter is! Long as she’s not falling out of
a tree or something, they won’t slip around or fall off. These headbands are
bulkier of course with the neural sensors and the power pack stitched into the
liner. And yes, the visor makes it a bit clunky compared to the glasses. But
our new type of visor never fogs up. And personally I like these headbands
better myself.”
“Why
is that, Katherine?” Marsh asked.
Quite
athletic in her own right, she said, “Because they stay on while you’re
jogging, or bicycling, or even doing summersaults. Even with flex bands the
sunglasses still slide around or fall off.”
Rob said, “When I showed both types to one of our
client reps, he said the same thing. He goes jogging every day by the way.”
Kathy said, “The only thing left with the headbands is
to spruce up the cosmetics with different types of fabrics and their colors.
They’re wire-less too, of course, except when re-charging. Speaking of which…” She pulled two coils from
her pockets and set them on his desk. “…they’ll still need these. Anyway, Rob,
your kids will have a real eye opener with these upgraded sensors.”
“Those two will definitely give these babies a good
workout.”
Marsh added, “Rob, would you mind asking your daughter
to take some notes I can look at? I’d be interested in anything she might jot
down.” He was quick to add, “Nothing against Ben, of course.”
Rob had to laugh. “Marsh, as a world-class gamer Ben’s no
dummy when it comes to VI headsets. But even if he did take notes, which I
doubt, you wouldn’t be able to read his scribbles. One thing he’s not is a
writer.”
Kathy asked, “Does Bessie do much gaming? My Lulu’s not
much into it.”
“No, but she’s a lot better than Ben overall with VI’s.
I’m telling you, she’s always had an ability you would not believe with using
‘em. You’ve both seen her do this at our place.”
Kathy nodded, “You and Connie do have a very special girl
there.”
Marsh agreed, “She does have a rather uncanny ability
to integrate her-self into the computer while wearing our units.” The other two
smiled at Marsh’s precise way of stating practically anything.
Rob said, “She’s been showing us that ever since I
started bringing them home five years ago. Even back then in whatever grade it
was, she claimed they took her to places where she had been…” He held the tips
of his forefinger and thumb barely shy of touching. “…this close to actually
being there.”
Thinking
about what else she did, he added dryly, “There’s also her whatever you call
it, her magic Harry Potter thing.”
Marsh frowned. “Her what?” Childless and unfamiliar with
the Harry Potter tales, he neither knew nor cared about any of that.
Rob guffawed, “Haw-haw! Yeah, Bess keeps her wizard’s staff
right there with her when hooked up to a VI head piece. She claims that old
stick helps her to focus better on whatever people, places, and things that
show up in the programmed environment. She says this makes them seem even more
real.”
Marsh arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Oh come on, Rob. I know
your daughter pretty well. I don’t think she really believes in all that
sorcery nonsense, not for a minute. Does she?”
“Actually, even she laughs it off as kid-stuff. And
yeah, all of her friends still rag her about this staff thing. But guys, our
Bess couldn’t care less. She stays pat with it because of the fantastic results
she gets. Naturally, this is just another of those go-figure things you get
with all of these kids.”
In
the same frame of mind as Marsh for once, Kathy had no patience with it either.
Sticking to business, she said, “Whatever, but soon as your two and my Lulu try
these, they’ll flip over them the same as we did downstairs. When my testers
returned from their VI trip to Paris they were practically speaking French! No
kidding, they swore up and down they came that close to actually feeling the
handrail atop the Eiffel Tower!”
Something just now occurred to her. Abruptly dead serious,
Kathy went on, “But there’s one problem I need to mention and it’s really
important.”
“Like
what?” Rob asked.
“This VI trip to France resulted with one of
my testers having a problem that users need to be warned about. We’ll fix it as
soon as possible. But if you market them before we do, it has to be
red-lettered in our instruction manual.”
Perry gave her a worried look. “Katherine, can you be more
specific?”
“We have to caution buyers not to simply yank off these headbands
the minute they leave their VI environments. The same applies to just flipping
up the visor when they’re done.”
Rob growled, “Months and months of working on this
thing and I swear! So then what happened?”
She said, “One of our technicians, Susan, did exactly that
after returning from her Paris trip. We know now that she should’ve left her
visor down while taking the time to reorient to her surroundings. But no, she just
flipped it up and then, oh my god!”
“Oh
my god what!?” Rob asked.
Kathy
shook her head. “Well, the poor girl went totally bonkers!”
“Jeez, Kath, is she okay?”
“She is now but for a few minutes Susan just sat there
babbling whatever it was, old nursery rhymes she learned as a kid. Afterward she
said it was like she’d lost her mind or something.”
Marsh was already typing this down on his PC. Looking up at
Kathy, he frowned, “Sorry, I should have said something to you. During my own
preliminary testing I made the same mistake and wound up highly disoriented. I
hadn’t realized how deeply my new unit entwines users with their virtual
reality environments.”
She waved dismissively, “They’ll be perfectly okay as long
as they leave the visor down and first look around to get their bearings. But
we need to be doubly sure to include cautionary remarks with the packaging. And
bosses, these have to be worded so people can understand them. Of course, it’s
the same with any of the units we’ve sold so far. So long as the users follow the
instructions, they’re fine!”
Before long Rob was carrying the two headsets through
the lobby and bound for home. Seated at her desk, their receptionist hailed
him. “Rob, Carmen Ricci just called from the Center! She wants to know if our
new headsets are ready yet!”
Halting, he slapped the side of his head. “Sorry Marilyn, I
forgot. Get back to Carmen and tell her we’ll deliver a couple tomorrow first
thing. They’ve been after us about these new ones all month!” Remembering
Kathy’s warning about yanking them off, he told Marilyn about that also. “And
whatever you do, make absolutely sure their people understand this, OK?”
“I will! Is Marsh staying awhile?”
“He might camp out up there all night for all I know!
Of course, I’ll be back here tomorrow myself. And sorry, Marilyn, but so will
you. Can you, I hope?”
“Sure!
For how long?”
“Just
until you notify our other clients about these new headsets. Then we can all
say adios to this place for what’s left of our weekend. For now though, we do
need to clue in the Center.”
Already keying her phone, she nodded, “I’m on it!”
Moments later Rob was headed for home in outlying
Covington. Normally leaving his office at a later time, he was unused to the
heavy rush hour traffic on the beltway circling Madison. But having to slowly
wind through it gave him a chance for once to calmly reflect on the current doings
with the business.
Speaking
of which, Rob could not recall the last time he’d had any time away from it. Nothing
was more satisfying to a business owner than offering a product, and a
high-quality one at that, which the buying market was beating down the doors to
get to. But after so many months of going at it 24/7? For two cents he would
chuck it all and fly the whole family down to the Gulf coast for a few relaxing
sunny days on the beach. The new headsets would not be ready to market for at
least another month, maybe more. With parent-teacher conferences starting next
Wednesday, both of his kids were free for a long weekend. Plus, if Connie took
some vacation time to skip her own conferences at the middle school?
He
shook his head – Nah, she’d never do
that. Besides, in case they did
sell some headsets ahead of time to preferred clients, like the UW Center and
several other research places, he now had to re-word the instruction manual to
include Kathy’s warning before passing it on to the printer. Plus, if she got
the headset’s cosmetics ready sooner than expected, he would have to jump-start
them into production. No, any vacations had to wait for December’s holiday
season. If even then, for Pete’s sake.
But after he was off work tomorrow they could at least all
go to Green Bay, spend the night, and catch Sunday’s game with the hated
Minnesota Vikings. What would tell the tale with this was how well his two teenagers
did tonight with these new headsets. Hopefully the only surprises would be good
ones.
