Steal the enemy's base at the start and build a technological empire.

Chapter 444 StarPhone 1 Industrial Design Finalized

The Shenzhen Xinghuo Industrial Design Center is located on the top floor of a six-story building in the South District of the Science and Technology Park. Downstairs is a router company, and you can often see salespeople carrying network cable samples up and down the elevator.

Lingyun's office is at the very back of this floor. The curtains are always drawn, not because he's afraid of the sun, but because the glass curtain wall of the building across the street reflects too much light. At two o'clock in the afternoon, it's so bright that people can't open their eyes, as if someone is shoving a mirror into their eyes.

When the design proposal was delivered to his desk, it was already the third version. He had rejected the first two versions; the first version was too thick, and the second version had too wide a screen bezel, making it feel like holding a framed photograph.

The designer for the third version was recruited from Sony. His name is Shinichi Tanaka. Before coming to Spark, he worked in Osaka for eight years as an industrial designer for VAIO laptops and produced three Red Dot Award-winning products.

When he placed the model on Lingyun's table, he did so very gently, as if he were placing a piece of porcelain on the table. Then he took a step back, folded his hands in front of him, and waited.

Lingyun picked up the model. It had a 3.5-inch screen, only one physical Home button on the front, a matte silver metal frame, and a frosted glass back cover, with a thickness of only 9.9 millimeters. He turned the model over and over to examine it, then held it in his hand, his fingers naturally bent, his thumb resting on the frame.

"What about the weight?"

"The actual weight is estimated to be around 130 grams," Tanaka said, "with the battery making up the bulk."

Ling Yun held the model up to his eyes, looking at the screen against the light. The light shone through the acrylic simulation screen, leaving a slight light leak at the edges, barely noticeable unless you looked closely. He ran his thumb across the screen, then again. The movement was slow, like touching a piece of freshly painted furniture.

"The corners aren't rounded enough," he said, placing the model back on the table and pointing to the two bottom corners with his finger. "Here, and here. It sits too close to the palm of your hand when you hold it, but it'll be uncomfortable after a while. Round the corners a little more."

Tanaka took out a pair of calipers from his pocket, bent down and measured the curvature of the bottom corner of the model. He wrote down three numbers in his notebook, saying as he did so, "If the rounded corners are too round, the stamping yield of the metal frame will be affected."

How much impact will it have?

"About two points."

"Two points are acceptable," Ling Yun said. "The feel of the phone in your hand is more valuable than the yield rate. When a user picks up the phone for the first time, he won't ask you about the stamping yield rate; he'll tell you whether the phone feels comfortable to hold."

Tanaka nodded and added a line of smaller text next to "Enlarge the R-angle". He wrote very quickly, and his handwriting was so messy it looked like an electrocardiogram.

Lingyun flipped the model over and pointed to the Home button on the back. "For this button, leave a groove, but not too deep."

Fingerprint recognition technology on the market isn't quite mature yet, but a solution will definitely emerge within two years. At that time, what we'll need to do isn't create new molds, but embed the recognition module.

"The fingerprint sensor is located at—" Tanaka pointed to the Home button with a pen.

"Yes. The supplier is not yet confirmed. But we'll reserve the location for now. The more shallow trench you dig now, the more time you'll save later."

Tanaka drew a circle on his notebook, wrote "fingerprint?" inside the circle, added an exclamation mark after it, and poked a small hole in the paper with the tip of his pen.

Ling Yun picked up the model again, this time placing it at eye level, looking at the camera from the side. The model's camera protruded slightly, about 0.3 millimeters, making it uneven on the table and wobbling when pressed. He touched the protrusion with his index fingertip, then looked up at Tanaka.

"The camera cannot protrude."

"Mr. Ling, the thickness of a five-megapixel module—"

"It can't bulge out. When you put your phone on a table, it has to be flat. If a user is eating and putting their phone on the table to browse messages, and there's a bulge, it will bounce up every time they tap, like a seesaw. If this problem can't be solved, the design isn't finished."

Tanaka put the vernier calipers back in his pocket, his right hand still inside, not pulled out. He stared at the model for at least ten seconds, then nodded slightly.

"I'll go back and check the wiring routing with the structural team again. If we can't reduce the module thickness, we'll have to move the motherboard two millimeters to the side. Slimming down the battery will probably reduce the weight by about ten grams."

"Battery life cannot be compromised," Lingyun interrupted him. "Battery life is the bottom line."

Tanaka nodded again, this time even slower.

He packed up the model, tucked it under his arm, and turned back as he walked towards the door. "Mr. Ling, what do you think of this version's design—overall?"

Ling Yun looked at him. "Overall, it's very good. You've created something that people want to hold in their hands. All that's left is polishing. I'll give you a week to fix the corners, the camera, and the recessed home button. Bring it over in a week, and if all goes well, it'll be finalized."

Tanaka didn't say anything, bowed, opened the door and went out.

The footsteps in the corridor were quick, so fast that their heels slapped the floor. After less than ten steps, his voice came from afar. He was talking to someone from the engineering department, speaking in Mandarin with a Japanese accent, his tone flat but his voice loud: "The camera can't protrude—he wants it completely flat—I know it's difficult, I know, just do it first, and then you can say it's impossible."

Ling Yun heard this in his office but didn't move. He pulled the curtains open a crack, and the glass curtain wall of the building across the street was directly in front of his window. The light had already moved away, leaving only a hazy reflection. He could see two cleaners clinging to the curtain wall, secured by safety ropes, swaying precariously as they wiped the glass.

The phone on the table rang. It was an internal number. Ling Yun pressed the speakerphone button; it was Zhao Hu's voice.

"Mr. Ling, there's something you need to see."

"What?"

"Hongguang Optoelectronics just sent me a supply list. I checked the accounts with the finance department, and there are no problems. However, while checking the reconciliation statement, I found an abnormal login record in the system—this morning at eight o'clock, someone logged into the code repository from an external IP using Engineer Wang's account. Engineer Wang is on sick leave today."

Lingyun drew the curtains. "Check the IP address."

"I checked. The IP address was ultimately located at that teahouse in the development zone."

The office was silent for a few seconds. People were laughing and talking in the hallway outside, their voices distant, as if telling a joke. Then the laughter subsided and silence returned.

"Zhao Hu," Ling Yun said, "take care of setting up surveillance cameras."

"clear."

After hanging up the phone, Ling Yun picked up his phone from the table, scrolled to his contacts, paused his thumb over Li Mo's name for a moment without pressing it, and then put it back on the table.