Chapter 705: Chapter 668: I Fulfilled My Own Promise
This step was much slower than expected.
Deaf and mute students also fall into two categories. One is that there are physiological problems with the vocal organs, making them unable to speak.
The other category consists of some congenitally deaf-mute students who actually have no problem with their vocal organs but cannot speak because they cannot hear and therefore have not learned to speak.
These students, by relying on [Eight Sides] to hear sounds again, have already regained their language ability with the help of teachers and parents, even though they can only make meaningless sounds like “ah ah ah” at the beginning.
After re-adjustment, the class is composed of students with congenital problems in their vocal organs, such as central language disorders, tongue-tie abnormalities, genetic factors, and those who have lost their language abilities due to accidents.
The improved [Eight Sides] can now solve this problem.
Last night, Lincoln and the technical team of Journey Prosthetics Company completed the test. During the experimental stage of the [Rehabilitation Therapist Plan], Journey Prosthetics has maintained a volunteer team of more than 100 people, more than 80% of whom have language barriers.
They have confirmed the feasibility of the technology.
But the company’s volunteers are different from these students.
These volunteers cooperate with the experiments every day and are very familiar with all the processes, so they don’t need much guidance from the engineers during the tests.
These students are different. They have become accustomed to being unable to speak, and their intended words are instinctively transformed into “thoughts” and “sign language.”
“Speaking” has become a strange thing for them.
Despite the teacher’s encouragement, and the students’ nervous attempts to speak, neither their vocal cords nor the headband produced any sound.
An eight-year-old boy anxiously signed to the teacher at a fast pace.
The teacher stretched out her hand, grabbed his hands, and stopped him from signing.
The boy grew more anxious, but the teacher held onto his hands tightly.
In his haste, the boy opened his mouth.
“Ah! Ah…”
At the same time, the headband finally made a sound.
[ “Teacher! Let me speak!”]
Hearing the synthesized electronic sound, the boy immediately froze in place.
The other students turned their attention to him.
This child had a language barrier caused by a high fever-induced convulsion when he was six years old, which resulted in him losing his ability to speak.
Now that he suddenly made a sound, he was very surprised himself.
The engineer from Journey Prosthetics quickly approached him to encourage him: “That’s amazing! It’s just the feeling you had just now, very simple, right? Try it again. As long as you succeed once and find the feeling, the rest of it will be very easy!”
“Tell us, what’s your name?”
“Ah-” He uttered a sound and stopped again.
After seeming to think for a moment, his mouth moved again, but this time without making a sound. The headband, however, produced the sound: [“My name is Philip.”]
“That’s great, you’re so talented!” the staff praised.
Seizing the moment, the teacher said, “That’s wonderful, Philip. Would you like to help your classmates?”
It took the young Philip two seconds before the headband spoke again: “Okay!”
He was still adapting. As he became more familiar with the “external vocal organ,” the ‘preparatory action’ before speech would become shorter and shorter until it disappeared completely.
Philip, with his personal experience, described his feelings and introduced tips to his classmates. The progress of the students accelerated significantly, with three children quickly succeeding in getting the headband to replace their vocal cords to “speak.”
Afterward, they started to help other students spontaneously.
Changing old habits won’t happen quickly, they demonstrated by talking through the headband while also signing quickly, introducing their experiences to their classmates.
For them, the efficiency of communication through sign language was much higher than speaking, which took some preparation.
For a while, more and more synthesized electronic sounds, anxious “ah-ah” sounds, the rubbing of sign language on down jackets, the teacher’s encouragement, and praise mingled together. The originally quiet classroom became lively and even noisy.
However, nobody disliked the noise at this moment but felt moved from the bottom of their hearts.
The volume of the live broadcast was lowered, and Lincoln’s voice cut in again:
“Let me explain to everyone that this is not the final product effect.”
“Because of the limited time, what you are seeing now is still a prototype.”
“When the final product is released, there will be a more comprehensive software guide, highly realistic and diverse voice lines, detachable and replaceable voice modules, and many other optimizations.”
Lincoln paused for a moment, watching the live stream with everyone else, seeing all the students successfully use the [Eight Sides] headband to produce speech, excitedly communicating with each other through this new method, and quickly interjecting with a dazzling sign language.
It was not until then that the live stream officially ended.
Lincoln gently clapped his hands, drawing everyone’s attention back to him.
“Just yesterday, I received some good news – the [Rehabilitation Plan] has officially been successful.”
“Late that evening, we produced the prototype and verified its feasibility.”
“Just now, everyone saw that this technology also works well in the external environment.”
“From today onwards, I can announce that the technical problem of language barriers no longer exists.”
“This is not only the final piece of the puzzle for the [Eight Sides] product line, but also the last missing technology for Journey Prosthetics.”
“Finally…”
Lincoln paused, not being able to help but recall that day five months ago, and finally said proudly to everyone:
“Finally, the brain-controlled prosthetic limbs I promised to create on the first day of virtual reality technology release have, at last, been completed.”
“I can say without shame that I have truly fulfilled my promise.”
As Lincoln’s words fell, the whole audience broke into thunderous applause!
Jim stood in the crowd, clapping vigorously, almost tearful with emotion.
He had experienced firsthand losing his ability to work due to blindness, not only being unable to support himself, but also becoming a burden on his family, and having completely lost hope in life.
It was for this reason that he was even more aware that what Lincoln had done was more than just an ordinary technological breakthrough or simply launching a new product for the company.
This was a matter of completely changing the destinies of a group of people.
No, not just a group of people.
Thinking of the great efforts Daxia had made in providing subsidies in recent months, Jim even felt that this was about changing the fates of an entire country’s disabled population.
Adding millions upon millions of workers to the country’s workforce and giving tens of millions of families hope for a better life.
In comparison, the cost of these subsidies was truly negligible!
If someone were to write a biography for Lincoln, the [Brain-Controlled Prosthetic Limbs] might even be more significant than the [Virtual Reality Technology]!
The applause continued for a long time, and it was only after Lincoln repeatedly gestured for everyone to stop that the noise finally subsided enough for him to continue speaking:
“The key to this technological breakthrough was not me.”
“This is not being modest. I did provide the foundational technology and research direction, but the subsequent practical work was completed by others.”
“Let me introduce to you the head of Journey Prosthetics and the technical team under his leadership!”
Kyle led the technical team of his company onto the stage, filling it completely.
Lincoln genuinely introduced everyone present and the efforts they had made in this project.
After this part was over, through a video, he also introduced and thanked the hundreds of volunteers who participated in the experiment.
Afterwards, Lincoln concluded: “All of these people, including myself, have contributed to the birth of this technology.”
“But the real key to the technological breakthrough was not us.”
His words immediately shocked everyone present.
“The technology was only just completed yesterday, and we had to rush to hold a press conference today. Some people might think I’m overly eager to show off my achievements.”
“But no, the real reason is that I can’t wait to share the joy with the greatest contributors to the technological breakthrough.”
“Yes, you.” Lincoln nodded seriously at the live broadcast lens.
“——The 130 million participants of the [Rehabilitation Plan]!”