Re: Life - Business & Technology

Chapter 128 Undercurrents

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In the Future Tech HQ Law Offices, a blonde Caucasian woman in her late 30s felt a sigh of relief after reading a three-hundred-page agreement with all the signatures required from all Future Tech's media partners worldwide.

Kemp-Jacobs and 80% of its lawyers and paralegals worked like clockwork to successfully pull off the biggest media distribution deal in the history of the international entertainment industry.

Marcia sat lazily on her office chair and pondered, [The young man, Vince Dalton, is the most ambitious person I've ever met. His achievements are no flukes like Future Tech critics propagate on social media. Instead, the innovative ideas and the unrelenting strategy fit this corporation well.]

The Walt Disney partnership with the Infinity Channel alone places its valuation at $100 billion. Still, Future Tech was capable of enticing other large media conglomerates like Viacom, Warner, and most other companies without an online streaming presence like Netflix or Apple to join the initiative. However, Sony didn't budge and refused to compromise. They weren't too happy about Future Tech entering the video game console industry and poaching Pharrell Williams from their record label.

Marcia flicked through the contacts list on her Infinity Watch. She sent a notification to the Future Studios Program Director, Oliver, confirming the press release and media trailers for the upcoming Infinity Channel.

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An hour later, daily commuters in Seoul briskly walked toward their destination. A new advertisement drew the locals' attention playing on the massive Future Tech audio-video billboard showcasing a new streaming service set for release the following week featuring a free tier and a paid tier packaged with a NetServ subscription.

The South Korean version of the advertisement displayed BTS watching ultra-definition Game of Thrones on their mobile phones, TVs, and laptops, with a complete Korean dub.

Future Tech provided their media partners with language localization support using Infi-AI machine learning. Future Studios recorded thousands of hours worth of voice actors reading novels in more than 80 languages for training the program.

The Voice Automatic Language Localizer or Voice-ALL worked similarly to modern equivalents in 2021 like Descript and Resemble.AI but was much more powerful and life-like due to technological advancements pioneered by Patel and his FT AI division.

The Voice-ALL feature was one of the primary reasons Walt Disney and other media companies were interested in Future Tech's proposal, allowing their media properties to penetrate foreign markets much more effectively.

Vince Dalton understood the importance of localizing media products, especially considering War Online's success in the global market when he poured plenty of liquid capital to hire localization specialists when Future Tech was tiny compared to now.

Most dubbing efforts result in pretty poor performances like the English dub of Squid Game on Netflix or the hilarious 4Kids dubs of cult favorites such as Pokemon and One Piece.

Voice-ALL wasn't meant to replace professional voice actors but to provide a consistent dubbing quality and convenience.

The Infinity Channel application was cross-platform and could be utilized on most supported devices but worked best on the Infinity consumer device ecosystem.

Customers with free accounts could access on-demand videos of War Online matches, interviews, and anything related to the APL. In addition, free users could also watch a 24/7 broadcast featuring Future Studios media products like Infinity News, podcasts, and special livestreams from direct media partners like 3D Jaden and Wonder Alice.

The continuous broadcast was available for free on cable television for potential customers who don't regularly use modern electronic devices, simply called the Infinity Channel.

Paid users on the platform could access media properties from so many entertainment outlets like HBO and CBS, for those interested in American shows and movies, or the BBC from the UK and Grupo Globo from Brazil, if the user wanted to explore foreign media. Future Tech would pay each media company a cut of the profits based on user watch time, listen time, and other DMUT (Digital Media Unique Tag) metrics logged and verified by the NetServ communications system.

The South Korean bystanders were enthralled by the well-directed advertisement involving their favorite K-POP group. The commercial introduced them to more Infinity Channel functions like listening to music, as it competed directly with Spotify and Apple Music.

The Infinity Channel was another justification to pay for a NetServ subscription, aside from the many others like high-speed internet, the Infinity Unreal Engine suite, Everlife Online, War Online, and secure communications systems.

Business experts observing Vince Dalton's strategy could quickly tell he spent plenty of resources providing NetServ subscribers more compelling reasons to continue paying the monthly fee.

Different versions of the advertisement played at Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, Time Square in Manhattan, Picadilly Circus in London, Future Tech Avenue in Kandahar, and the Latin Quarter in Paris, among other media billboards located in populous cities worldwide.

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The Ghouta Chemical Attack had been garnering massive international news coverage, especially the United Nations video footage of the Syrian military's involvement.

The international courts were breathing down President Bashar al-Assad's administration for an explanation regarding the war crimes.

He was in a middle of a meeting with loyal military officers, mostly consisting of his family members.

Qadir, the general on Fawdaa's payroll, was also present and watched as his President expressed dissatisfaction through shouting expletives and objects flying around the conference room.

Bashar angrily asked, "I ordered the killing of dissidents against my regime, not for every United Nations member country to give me shit on international news! What the hell happened!?"

The officers were utterly nervous in answering the rhetorical questions, fearing retaliation from the impatient and unamused President until Major General Maher, his brother, said, "Bashar, we took every precaution when we fired those missiles into Damascus. I have no idea how any recon drone could capture such a clear video of the launch. It's like they were already watching us beforehand."

There was no public information about the ASR-1 drones which replaced the older reconnaissance aircraft in the US military, but Qadir joined the conversation and said, "With all due respect, a few of my contacts informed me about much more advanced spy technology the west is using these days. They've told me the video footage most likely came from a Future Tech recon drone."

Major General Maher couldn't believe what he was hearing and proudly said, "Impossible! My Air Forces hadn't detected any foreign assets in our air space for months before we launched the missiles. We're not playing games here, Qadir."

The opportunistic Qadir procured photos taken by Anarchy spies of USAF-marked ASR-1s stationed at the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, probably meant to spy on the Russian border.

Bashar and the other officers examined the pictures Qadir received from his Fawdaa comrades. The confidential recon drone was designed by aerodynamics engineers from Future Tech Formula One and Heidi's team at Future Robotics.

No one else knew about the ASR-1s during production, but anybody could've gained access to US Air Force bases to take clandestine photographs once they were deployed.

Fawdaa told Qadir about a few of its features and explained, "Our radar systems can't detect spy planes more than 30 kilometers in altitude, but the ASR-1 cruises at Mach 3.5 near the maximum stratosphere altitude of 50 kilometers. That's twice as high compared to the SR-71 Blackbird's capabilities."

Qadir understood that promotions were given to people who provided answers, and he had plenty of intelligence from his new friends to share with his comrades.

Qadir observed a lull during the meeting while the officers examined the futuristic recon drone photos and confidently said, "The Free Syrian Army is growing stronger with the negative sentiment on international news. So we'll need to quell the rebellion soon before they're armed and supported by western nations."

Bashar felt slightly better knowing the situation wasn't due to treachery and tactical disadvantage instead and stated, "I don't care if the west gets involved. We have the Russians to help us win any war. Maher, Qadir, round up all the dissidents exploiting my bad luck. But don't use Sarin gas anymore. Scare the rebels with our trained soldiers and remind them who runs this country. The United Nations is a joke and a toothless beast."

The primary issue plaguing the country of Syria was the systematic oppression led by the al-Assad family, which was strongly supported by the minority Alawites who held most of the authority.

The Shia Muslim Alawites constituted only less than 20% of the Syrian population, and most of them feared losing political authority and violent Sunni majority retribution if the Assad regime fell.

Thousands of young Alawite men sacrificed their lives for their President to protect minority interests, but at the cost of peaceful compromise between citizens in the same nation.

Qadir was quite happy being given the order to eliminate dissidents as his new objective working for Fawdaa was to instigate a much bigger war between Assad and the Free Syrian Army.

They would grow the conflict to force the western allies to spend more resources and time in Syria and ultimately drag Russia into a larger proxy war.

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